91 civilians still held in Boosa

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 02 January 2008, 12:22 GMT]
Ninety one civilians including eighty nine Tamils and two Sinhalese are still being detained in Boosa detention camp located in Galle, south of Colombo, without any charges. Eight of them are Tamil women, and most of them are residents of Nugegoda, a suburb in Colombo.

Nine of the detained were arrested on December 23 in Colombo.

The others are detainees from about 2000 Tamil civilians arrested soon after the Nugegoda bomb blast that killed about twenty persons and later released on stages due to the intervention of the Supreme Court followed by the filing of a Fundamental Rights Violation petition by the Ceylon Workers Congress (CWC).

Meanwhile, a group of activists from the Ceylon Workers Congress (CWC), a constituent of the ruling United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) government, visited Boosa detention camp on Monday and recorded statements from the detainees.

Further inquiry into the Fundamental Rights Violation petition filed by the CWC against the mass arrest of Tamil civilians after Nugegoda bomb blast in the Supreme Court has been fixed for January 7.

The CWC said it would file a report in the Supreme Court on that date about the future of those detained in Boosa detention camp, sources said.