Sithie Tiruchelvam and Neelan Tiruchelvam were committed constant
engagement for peace and social justice.
Noted lawyer and Sri Lankan human rights activist
Sithie Tiruchelvam, wife of the internationally respected academic
Neelan Tiruchelvan, passed away here on Saturday after a brief illness.
She was 69.
Ms.
Tiruchelvam, along with Neelan Tiruchelvam — one of the foremost,
erudite activists of Sri Lanka who worked on a devolution package and
championed the political rights of Tamils — is known for her deep
engagement with the cause of social justice and peace.
In
addition to collaborating with him at Tiruchelvam Associates, a leading
Colombo-based law firm that they established together, Ms. Tiruchelvam
contributed significantly to the International Centre for Ethnic Studies
(ICES) and the Law and Society Trust. The institutions are highly
regarded research and policy organisations founded by Tiruchelvam, who
served the Sri Lankan parliament in the 1990s representing the Tamil
United Liberation Front (TULF), before he was assassinated by the LTTE
in 1999.
Friends and colleagues fondly remember Ms.
Tiruchelvam as one of the most committed rights activists who
passionately created a space for interaction of intellectuals not just
from Sri Lanka, but from all over the world. “Their living room was open
to everyone,” said Radhika Coomaraswamy, former U.N.
Under-Secretary-General, and close friend of Sithie. “She provided an
intellectual space for people from all ethnic groups. She would go the
extra mile to help someone.”
Terming her death a big
loss to the legal fraternity and to human rights activism, Jayantha
Dhanapala, member of the Friday Forum, a prominent Colombo-based civil
society organisation, said “Sri Lanka cannot afford to lose people like
her.”
Ms. Tiruchelvam was on the board of several
leading companies in Sri Lanka. In addition to law and human rights, she
was deeply interested in literature and arts. She also mentored young
lawyers and activists, giving them a solid grounding in politics and
contemporary social issues. Friends observed that her efforts in running
the Neelan Tiruchelvam Trust, set up after the assassination of her
husband, were remarkable in carrying forward his intellectual legacy.
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