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அவுஸ்திரெலியாவுக்கு வரும் தமிழர்களில் பெரும்பாலோர் உண்மையான அகதிகள் -THE AGE

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  • கருத்துக்கள உறவுகள்

அவுஸ்திரெலியாவுக்கு வரும் தமிழர்களில் பெரும்பாலோர் உண்மையான அகதிகள் - THE AGE

Most Tamils real refugees, say experts

THE majority of Tamil asylum seekers are genuine refugees and claims they are radicals and terrorist sympathisers are a fiction being pushed by the Sri Lankan government, experts say.

The response comes after claims were aired that as many as half of the more than 1000 Tamil asylum seekers who have arrived in Australia since 2008 are either former Tamil Tigers or their supporters.

Terrorism expert at the Australian National University, Clive Williams, said most Tamils would, as a necessity, have contact with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), given the group ruled a large swath of northern Sri Lanka, but that did not make them potential terrorists.

''It's one thing to be actually engaged in actually killing people and quite another to be simply living in the same area or maybe donating a bit of money because you're pressured to do so,'' Professor Williams said.

''If somebody had blood on their hands, then clearly I have reservations about them coming to Australia, but the chances are that about 99 per cent of the [Tamils] coming here don't have any association like that.''

The claims that between 25 and 50 per cent of Tamil asylum seekers were either terrorists or terrorist sympathisers were made by a postgraduate university student and defence analyst, Sergei DeSilva-Ranasinghe, in yesterday's Australian.

''You've got people here who've essentially been radicalised, who've fought and (may have) committed acts of terrorism, and they've come here without any sense of being rehabilitated,'' he said.

A representative of the Australian Tamil Congress, Dr Sam Pari, said Mr DeSilva-Ranasinghe's comments were part of a ''smear campaign''.

''The Sri Lankan government, now facing a potential war crimes investigation, has systemically sought to label Tamils as Tigers or potential terrorists in order to justify their collective punishment,'' she said.

Sources within the intelligence and law enforcement community also said Sri Lankans did not rank highly - in fact barely ranked at all - on the list of groups that posed a threat.

http://www.theage.com.au/national/most-tamils-real-refugees-say-experts-20100714-10b5k.html

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