The Australian Greens have written to Prime Minister Julia Gillard to ask her to issue a formal request to the Sri Lankan government to recall its High Commissioner, Thisara Samarasinghe, pending an independent investigation into his role in alleged war crimes during the Sri Lankan civil war.

"If the Sri Lankan government refuses to recall the High Commissioner, the Prime Minister should expel Mr Samarasinghe pending an independent international war crimes investigation," Australian Greens Leader Bob Brown said in Canberra.

Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Legislation Committee

Estimates hearings, 20 October 2011

Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade

Click here for AFP tanscripts from 18th of October 2011.

Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee

Estimates hearings, 18 October 2011

Australian Federal Police

Responding to today's report about war crimes in Sri Lanka Greens Senator Lee Rhiannon has urged Foreign Affairs Minister Kevin Rudd to add his voice to the growing international call for an independent investigation into the final stages of the Sri Lankan civil war (Sydney Morning Herald).

Finance and Public Administration Legislation Committee

Estimates hearings, 17 October 2011

Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet

Lee Rhiannon will be speaking at the following event on 27 October.

Shelves are groaning with reports by human rights monitors, amassing evidence of atrocities in Sri Lanka's civil war. Audiences in Australia - and many other countries - have seen the documentary, made by the UK's Channel Four TV, with its compelling visual material. And yet governments - and international bodies such as the UN and the Commonwealth - hold back from decisive action. What can Australia do? What can journalists do? What can you do?

Speakers:

Blog post by Senator Lee Rhiannon

Balloons and streamers bobbing in the wind showed us the way to the birthday house. These days this is not an unusual weekend sight in suburban Sydney. The Villawood home of the Ragavan family may look like a regular suburban house but it is effectively a prison, behind massive wire fences and heavy security checks.

The major parties, in rejecting a Greens Senate motion today calling for Sri Lanka to be suspended from the Councils of the Commonwealth, have failed to take action on the war crimes committed in Sri Lanka during the final stages of the civil war, Greens Senator Lee Rhiannon said.

The motion below, supported only by the nine Greens Senators, follows a round table on Sri Lanka held at Federal Parliament on Tuesday.

Motions, Thursday 22 September 2011

Senator RHIANNON (New South Wales) (13:31): I move:

That the Senate—