CRITICS of Sri Lanka’s human rights record are calling for a boycott of the national cricket team’s tour of Australia and say the Boxing Day Test will be an opportunity to protest.
Two groups have called for a boycott ahead of the first Test in Hobart this week, prompting a scathing rebuke from Sri Lankan high commissioner Thisara Samarasinghe.
Claiming inspiration from the former anti-apartheid sporting sanctions against South Africa, the Tamil Refugee Council and the Refugee Action Collective in Victoria are pushing for the boycott.
”There will be a stain of injustice that won’t wash out of the cricket whites if the human rights abuses of the ruling Sri Lankan regime pass unremarked,” the groups say in an open letter.
Mr Samarasinghe branded their call unworthy of attention, saying of the Sri Lankan team: ”They have not come from the back door. They have been welcomed by your government and everybody in the system, so don’t let this great country be spoiled by people like this.”
The call has provoked a mixed reaction from refugee advocates, with some arguing that the Boxing Day Test represents an opportunity to get information to a mass audience, and they plan to distribute leaflets attacking Sri Lanka’s treatment of Tamils to cricket fans.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/call-to-boycott-sri-lankan-cricket-tour
Source: Sydney Morning Herald
