Toronto Star | Ontario’s ‘Tamil Genocide Education Week’ Faces Constitutional Challenge

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Tamil Rights Group

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May 18, 2022, 4:31:22 PM5/18/22

to தமிழ் ஆராய்ச்சி

On this solemn day, we stand with victims and survivors of the Tamil genocide in Sri Lanka. We remember and we fight for the right to remember – through every legal means available to hold individual perpetrators and the Sri Lankan state accountable for their crimes.

Read today’s article in the Toronto Star on our intervention in Canada in the constitutional challenges against Ontario’s Tamil Genocide Education Week Act, 2021, and why we believe it is important help preserve international legislation that recognises the Tamil genocide in Sri Lanka.

“[Katpana] Nagendra, who is part of a group of Tamil organizations that have been granted intervener status in the Ontario court case, said it’s important for the community to participate in the proceedings to ensure the Tamil perspectives on the conflict in Sri Lanka are taken into account.

There are disputable facts cited in the constitutional challenge that again fuel the assumption that the Tamil Genocide Education Week came from LTTE propaganda, said Nagendra, a member of the Tamil Rights Group, a human rights advocacy organization.

“We’re saying that it is the Sri Lankan government and government policies that are in place that are oppressing the Tamil community. So we need to be very clear about that,” she said in an interview.

“It’s another emotional roller-coaster for us to think that we got that recognition and now someone is challenging me even more, so we need to defend it even more. Our community is always struggling to affirm our place, to affirm our story, and we’re always going to be challenged. Maybe that’s the plight of the Tamil community.”