Sunila Abeysekera, Sri Lankan Human Rights Activist, Dies at 61

Sunila Abeysekera, Sri Lankan Human Rights Activist, Dies at 61
By Margalit Fox, The New York Times, 13 Sep 2013

Sunila Abeysekera, a prominent human rights advocate who sought to bring the world’s attention to myriad acts of violence in her country, Sri Lanka, despite threats against her own life, died of cancer on Monday in Colombo, the Sri Lankan capital. She was 61. Her death was announced by Human Rights Watch. Until recently she had lived in the Netherlands because of the latest round of threats against her. Ms. Abeysekera, a single mother and a lesbian, was also a champion of women’s rights throughout South Asia, working for reproductive rights and economic parity and to end violence against women.

No Peace Without Justice non‑profit organisation founded by Emma Bonino and born of a 1993 campaign of the Transnational Radical Party that works for the protection and promotion of human rights, democracy, the rule of law and international justice, and undertakes its work within the following main thematic programs: the international criminal justice program; the program on gender and human rights, with particular reference to the ban on Female Genital Mutilation; the Middle East and North Africa Democracy program; the campaign against human and environmental devastation in the Amazon.

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Sunila Abeysekera, Sri Lankan Human Rights Activist, Dies at 61

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