By CAM LUCADOU-WELLS
PROTESTERS – many of them from Greater Dandenong’s Tamil community – marched about 20 kilometres to show their opposition against the Sri Lankan government on Sunday.
Campaign for Tamil Justice organiser Aran Mylvaganam said about 30 intrepid walkers, including a seven-year-old girl, trekked from Glen Waverley railway station to a speak-out at the State Library Victoria in Melbourne’s CBD.
They converged with another protest group, which marched about 13 kilometres from Sunshine.
Speakers included writer Trevor Grant, Maritime Union of Australia branch secretary Kevin Bracken and criminal-defence lawyer Robert Stary.
“Twenty-four hours after the walk, we are still recovering from it,” Mr Mylvaganam said.
“It was a very tiring walk but our determination to get justice for the victims of Tamil genocide kept us going.”
The group had taken issue with the UN Human Rights Commissioner delaying the release of a report into alleged human rights abuses in Sri Lanka.
Spokesman Vasanth Lawrence said the group called for a withdrawal of military forces from Sri Lanka’s north and east, the release of all Tamil political prisoners and the end of a “campaign of murder, rape, jailings, torture and other crimes against Tamils”.
