வளைகுடாவில் இலங்கையிலிருந்து செல்லும் வீட்டு அடிமைப்பெண்கள் சித்திரவதை கொடூரம்

சவுதி அரேபியா, அமீரகம், குவாய்த், லெபனான் ஆகிய இஸ்லாமிய நாடுகளுக்கு வேலைக்குச் செல்லும் இலங்கை பெண்கள் கொடூரமாக சித்திரவதை செய்யப்படுகிறார்கள். பாலுறவு பலாத்காரம் செய்யப்படுகிறார்கள். அடிமையினும் கொடுமையாக நடத்தபப்டுகிறார்கள்.
இவர்கள் மீது அரபியர்கள் செலுத்தும் வன்முறையை தடுக்க அரசாங்கங்கள் எந்த நடவடிக்கையும் எடுப்பதில்லை என்று அறிக்கைகள் தெரிவிக்கின்றன

Sri Lanka abuse 'rampant' in Gulf



Tales of torture and abuse have emerged from the Gulf
Gulf states are failing to curb serious abuses of Sri Lankan migrant workers employed as maids in their countries, a Human Rights Watch report has said.
The US-based group says abuse of maids is rampant in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Lebanon.

Employers routinely confiscate domestic workers' passports and confine them to the workplace, the rights group says.

The UAE has denied the charges, saying Human Rights Watch has ignored its efforts to improve workers' conditions.

More than 660,000 Sri Lankan women work abroad as maids, nearly 90% of them in the Gulf countries.

Abusive employers

The 131-page report - called Exported and Exposed - documents the serious abuses that domestic workers face at every step of the migration process.


Thousands of Sri Lankans head overseas for work each year

"Governments in the Gulf expose Sri Lankan domestic workers to abuse by refusing to guarantee a weekly rest day, limits to the workday freedom of movement and other rights that most workers take for granted," said Jennifer Turner, a women's rights researcher at Human Rights Watch.

"Too many abusive employers and unscrupulous labour agents get away with exploiting these workers without any real punishment."

The report is based on 170 interviews with domestic workers, government officials, and labour recruiters conducted in Sri Lanka and in the Middle East.

"Domestic workers typically labour for 16 to 21 hours a day, without rest breaks or days off, for extremely low wages of 15 to 30 US cents per hour," the report says.

'Reform laws'

Some domestic workers told Human Rights Watch how they were subjected to forced confinement, food deprivation, physical and verbal abuse, forced labour, and sexual harassment and rape by their employers.

"The Gulf countries need to do a lot more to stop abuse of domestic workers," Ms Turner said.

"The governments of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the UAE should extend labour laws to domestic workers, ensure their complaints can be heard and reform immigration laws so that workers aren't tied to employers."

The rights group has also urged the Sri Lankan government to improve regulation and monitoring of recruitment agents, as well as services for abused workers in consulates abroad.

The UAE has dismissed the charges.

In response, it said Human Rights Watch has "once again chosen to ignore many of the positive steps adopted by the UAE in recent months to improve conditions for temporary foreign workers in the country".

Many of HRW's recommendations have already been met or are in progress, the UAE's state news agency WAM quoted Anwar Gargash, minister of state for Federal National Council affairs, as saying.

Migrant workers make up the largest net foreign exchange earner for Sri Lanka.

The country has a huge unemployment problem, and often cannot dictate terms to richer nations.



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லெபனானில் 15 நாட்களில் 222 இஸ்லாமிய பயங்கரவாதிகள் கொலை

பதினைந்தே நாட்களில் 222 அல்குவேதா இஸ்லாமிய பயங்கரவாதிகளை லெபனான் ராணுவம் கொன்றிருப்பதாக லெபனான் அரசு தெரிவித்துள்ளது.

Lebanon says 222 militants killed in camp battle
By Yara Bayoumy


BEIRUT (Reuters) - Lebanon said on Tuesday its army killed at least 222 Islamist militants from an al Qaeda-linked group in a 15-week battle at a Palestinian refugee camp in northern Lebanon.



The army finally took control of the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp on Sunday after more than three months of fierce battles, including air, sea and land bombardment against the entrenched Fatah al-Islam militants.



Defence Minister Elias al-Murr also said 202 militants were captured in the battles and an unknown number were buried in mass graves inside the largely destroyed camp.



"This victory uprooted the biggest threat that faced the Lebanese people because Fatah al-Islam was spreading like cancer cells to target each part of the nation," Murr told a news briefing.



"The organisation was aiming to isolate the north from Lebanon to create a terrorist emirate," he said.



At least 42 civilians and 163 soldiers were killed, bringing the death toll to 427 -- Lebanon's worst internal violence since the 1975-1990 civil war.



Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, speaking during a visit to Rome, said Lebanon was committed to rebuilding the camp and asked donor countries for help in relief and reconstruction.



But he said the state would regain "full control" and that the camp would become "a model of the real relationship and healthy relationship between the Lebanese and the Palestinians".



The army's head of intelligence said Fatah al-Islam was directly linked to al Qaeda.



The group has said it has no organisational ties to Osama bin Laden's network and that its aims were to spread its hardline interpretation of Islam among Palestinians and to fight Israel.



But Brigadier General George Khoury told the same briefing: "All the investigations have confirmed that the Fatah al-Islam organisation is linked to al Qaeda and is in continuous link and contact with it."



"This was revealed through all the investigations that were carried out of captured elements, communications that occurred between al Qaeda cells outside Lebanon and confessions of captured people," he said.



Most of the militants were foreign Arab fighters and some had fought in Iraq.



NO LINKS TO SYRIA



Lebanese soldiers who participated in the battles began returning to their bases on Tuesday as thousands of flag-waving Lebanese cheered them on the roads of northern Lebanon.



The army also said it had no information that linked the group to Syrian intelligence -- a charge maintained by the anti-Syrian cabinet but denied by Fatah al-Islam and Damascus.



"In this issue specifically, we have no information that indicates this group's link to Syrian intelligence. I want to affirm that the investigation on those captured has not ended ... and these investigations will reveal the truth in this matter," army Chief of Staff Major General Shawki al-Masri said.



Masri also said the army's entry to Nahr al-Bared did not mean it would go into other Palestinian camps in Lebanon but that the army would prevent "terrorist acts" wherever they happen, either inside or outside Palestinian camps.



Under a 1969 Arab agreement, the Lebanese army is banned from entering Lebanon's 12 Palestinian refugee camps. While the agreement was later annulled, it remained largely in place until the Nahr al-Bared battle began.



"Of course it will not be allowed for Nahr al-Bared to return to the way it was. The responsibility of security will only be that of the Lebanese security forces," Masri said.



The government has said four Syrian members of Fatah al-Islam confessed to bombing two buses in February in a Christian area near Beirut.



Preliminary investigations also link the group with an assassination attack on a Christian minister in November. (Additional reporting by Tom Perry and Laila Bassam; Reuters Messaging: yara.bayoumy.reuters.com@reuters.net

லெபனானில் கிறிஸ்துவர் முஸ்லீம் கலவரத்தில் 5 பேர் காயம் ஒருவர் பலி

ஷியா பிரிவு முஸ்லீம்களும் கிறிஸ்துவர்களும் லெபனானில் மோதிக்கொண்டதில் ஐந்து பேர் காயமடைந்தனர். ஒரு போலீஸ்காரர் பலியானார்.

கிறிஸ்துவர்களது பெண்களை ஷியா முஸ்லீம் இளைஞர்கள் துன்புறுத்தியதால், கிறிஸ்துவர்கள் புகார் செய்ய சென்றது கலவரமாக வெடித்தது.



Police officer killed, five men wounded in Muslim-Christian clash in south Lebanon
The Associated PressPublished: July 22, 2007

BEIRUT, Lebanon: A police officer died and five men were injured Sunday in a sectarian clash between Christian villagers and their Shiite Muslim neighbors in southern Lebanon, security officials said.

The fight erupted when residents in the Christian locality of Tanbourit argued with Shiite youths from the nearby town of Ghaziyeh, blaming them of having harassed some women as they cruised around the village in their car, the officials said.

The two groups quickly scuffled and then hurled rocks at each other before shooting broke out, the officials said, speaking on conditions of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.

Four Tanbourit villagers were wounded in the brawl, and a fifth was hit in the head by a bullet when gunshots erupted, they said.

Elias Samir Haj, 22, a member Lebanon's security services and a village resident, was later killed by the gunmen as he drove the critically injured villager to hospital in the nearby coastal town of Sidon, the officials said.

The Shiite youths were suspected of having fired all of the shots, officials said.

They said the army had arrested 10 men for questioning over the incident, which threatened to inflame sectarian tensions at a time when Lebanon is facing its worst political crisis since the end of the 1975-90 civil war that tore the country apart along mostly sectarian lines.

Many Lebanese have kept weapons since the war, and the youths suspected in the shooting were not thought to belong to the Shiite Hezbollah or any other guerrilla group, the officials said.

Southern Lebanon is predominantly Shiite, but has a patchwork of communities that often congregate by religion and live in separate villages .

Lebanese troops and policemen deployed in Tanbourit to prevent renewed friction between Christians and Muslims from the two localities, which lie a few hundred meters (yards) from each other. Soldiers also raided a number of houses and hideouts in Ghaziyeh and seized the car used by the youths, officials said.

Ghaziyeh's mayor, Mohammed Samieh Ghadar, denounced the clash and vowed it would not hurt the "brotherly" ties between the two communities.

"This is an isolated incident, it will not affect our relations," Ghadar said.

The bloodshed came as Lebanon is facing its most serious political crisis since the end of the 1975-90 civil war, with the Western-backed government and the Hezbollah-led opposition locked in a fierce power struggle.

The crisis has taken on an increasingly sectarian tone and led to Sunni-Shiite street clashes between pro- and anti-government factions, killing 11 people in recent months.

லெபனானில் 300 முஸ்லீம் தீவிரவாதிகள் கொல்லப்பட்டனர்

லெபனான் அரசாங்க்க துருப்புகள் பாலஸ்தீன அகதிகள் முகாமில் இருந்த முஸ்லீம் தீவிரவாதிகளுடன் மோதியதில் 300 முஸ்லீம் தீவிரவாதிகள் கொல்லப்பட்டனர் அல்லது படுகாயமடைந்திருக்கின்றனர் என்று லெபனான் அரசு தெரிவித்துள்ளது.

Lebanese DM: 300 Islamist militants killed or wounded
Wednesday, 27 June, 2007 @ 4:29 PM


Beirut – The funerals of 16 militants killed in Nahr el-Bared were delayed because the Governments in the Middle East region want to inspect the bodies before burial to determine their nationalities.

Many of the terrorists killed in Lebanon are neither Palestinian nor Lebanese, but a mix of Islamists from as far as Bangladesh in the East to Morocco in the west.

Some 300 Islamic militants have been killed or wounded in the month-long battle with Lebanese troops in a Palestinian refugee camp, leaving only a few dozen fighters still hiding in the besieged camp, Defense Minister Elias Murr (pictured right) said Tuesday.

In an interview with the Dubai-based Al-Arabiya television, Murr said the Lebanese army has cornered the remaining members of the al-Qaeda-inspired Fatah Islam group in a small section of the Nahr el-Bared camp, located near the northern port city of Tripoli.

The military now controls 80 percent of the camp, the minister said.

The army has captured about 40 militants of different nationalities, including those suspected of links to al-Qaeda, Murr said. He said the group's leader, Shaker al-Absi, who has not been seen since fighting broke out May 20, was now taking residents as “human shields,” though he gave no other details.

The fighting in Nahr el-Bared has been Lebanon's worst internal violence since the 1975-1990 civil war, and is believed to have claimed the lives of at least 60 militants and more than 20 civilians.

It came amid a fierce power struggle between Lebanon's Western-backed government and the opposition led by the militant Hezbollah group.

Last week, Murr declared victory over Fatah al-Islam, but heavy machine gun fire and bursts of artillery shells continue to reverberate across the camp, including on Tuesday, sending plumes of black and white smoke into the air.

The state-run National News Agency said the army unleashed artillery barrages to silence the militants' gunfire. At least two shells fired by Fatah Islam gunmen landed in villages near the camp, causing damage to a house but no casualties, it said.

“The army has accomplished its military mission with regard to destroying and occupying all Fatah Islam positions in the Nahr el-Bared camp,” Murr maintained Tuesday.

When fighting broke out, there were more than 350 Fatah Islam fighters in the camp. Murr said the “remaining number now is between 50 to 60.”

He said 84 soldiers have been killed and more than 150 soldiers have been wounded.

In recent days, the army said it destroyed several buildings that housed Fatah Islam's positions on the camp's fringes in what has become known as the “new camp.”

But parts of the “old camp” – the densely populated neighborhoods with narrow, winding streets where most of the Palestinian refugees lived – appear to remain outside the military's control.

Murr said the army was tightening the noose around the remaining militants hiding in the “old camp” to force them to surrender.

He said the siege would continue until the militants surrender or are eliminated. “The army will not back down on its mission before these criminals are apprehended. This is a final and irreversible decision.”

Earlier Tuesday, Murr met with FBI Director Robert Mueller, who reaffirmed U.S. support for Lebanon. A U.S. Embassy statement said Mueller's meetings in Beirut focused on law enforcement cooperation and “highlighted the willingness of the FBI to ... help Lebanon strengthen its ability to fight crime and terrorism by providing training and equipment.”

Sources: AP, Ya Libnan