Activist: Sri Lankan police arrest war-missing kin

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Sri Lanka's police arrested a woman and her 13-year-old daughter in what human rights activists said was part of the government's continuing efforts to intimidate families of the country's civil war-missing into silence. The main political party representing ethnic Tamils said the pair had not been brought to a court by Friday evening.

Balendran Jeyakumari and her daughter Vithushaini were arrested in the northern Kilinochchi district Thursday night after hundreds of military and police held them house-bound for hours, a rights activist said on condition of anonymity fearing military reprisals.

Jeyakumari had been vocal in calling for the release of her 15-year-old son, a child recruit of the Tamil Tiger rebels whom she had handed to the military as fighting ended in 2009. Both the mother and daughter have been in the forefront of protests demanding details of war missing and were prominently featured in media photographs and videos including when British Prime Minister David Cameron visited the country last year.

Jeyakumari has a strong case against the government because it published a photograph of her son in a government book depicting the release of rehabilitated rebel fighters. He was not released, however, and his whereabouts are unknown. His mother is also a leader in mobilizing families of missing persons in her neighborhood, the activist said.

Police spokesman Ajith Rohana said Jeyakumari was arrested for harboring a criminal who he says was hiding at her home and shot at officers during a raid. He claimed Vithushaini was not arrested but taken in "for her own protection."

Tamil National Alliance the major political party representing ethnic Tamils said the two had not been brought before a court even by Friday evening and feared that the government may charge them under a tough Prevention of Terrorism Act which allows suspects to be detained for an extended period without being brought to court.

Demanding that the mother and daughter be brought before a court and released immediately the TNA said that it is deeply concerned for their safety and wellbeing "given the context of reported widespread sexual violence against women in the Northern Province."

It asked the international community to do all it can to ensure their safety and release.

The rights activist said several family members of missing persons in Sri Lanka's former war zone have been silenced after being arrested under fabricated charges.

The U.N. human rights chief Navi Pillay, ending a visit to Sri Lanka last August, said people who had spoken with her had been visited by the military and police and were questioned and the U.N. took such reprisals as an "extremely serious matter."

Thursday's arrests came as the U.N. Human Rights Council reviews Sri Lanka's human rights, including the issue of missing persons and its failure to investigate war crimes allegations against both government and Tamil Tiger rebels.

Ethnic Tamil civilians from the country's former northern war zone complain the whereabouts of many of their relatives personally handed over to the military heeding a call to surrender and those arrested on suspicion are not known nearly five years since the war's end.

The United States has sponsored a third resolution on Sri Lanka calling for an international probe on alleged war crimes if the island nation fails to conduct one of its own.