Hearing starts in Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka yesterday began a three-day hearing on missing persons cases amid protests by Tamil groups who are demanding a credible investigation into such issues.

The presidential commission investigating cases of missing persons has started its hearing in the country's eastern Trincomalee province.

"The relatives of those who have forcibly disappeared are tired of going before various mechanisms set up by the government of Sri Lanka from time to time," Tamil Civil Society Forum said in a letter to the commission.

The CSF said that the commission's line of questioning of the relatives is wrong, and designed to probe people's socio economic conditions than helping to find the missing relatives.