Born: 23 February 1954, Sri Lanka
Died: 21 September 1989
Country most active: Sri Lanka
Also known as: Rajani Rajasingham
Sri Lankan Tamil human rights activist, doctor, professor and feminist Rajani Thiranagama was assassinated in 1989 after criticising the atrocities of the Liberation Tamil Tigers Eemlam and Indian Peace Keeping Force.
Rajani began working as a doctor in 1978, and started lecturing in anatomy at the newly established Faculty of Medicine at the University of Jaffna in 1980. At the time, Jaffna was a violent place in the early stages of the Sri Lankan Civil War. Inspired by her older sister Nirmala, who was an LTTE member at the time, Rajani initially supported the group by providing medical care to wounded members. Travelling to England in 1983 for postgraduate studies at Liverpool Medical School, she launched a campaign demanding the release of her sister, imprisoned in 1982 under Sri Lanka’s Prevention of Terrorism Act. She also joined the LTTE’s London committee to inform international human rights groups and others about atrocities happening in Sri Lanka, and also joined grassroots efforts fighting for gender and racial equality. Over time, however, the violence on all sides led Rajani to criticise the LTTE, IPKF and Sri Lanka’s government for the horrors impacting the Tamil civilians in Jaffna. Collecting evidence of human rights violations by the LTTE and IPKF, she and other teachers established the Jaffna branch of the University Teachers for Human Rights. Rajani co-authored The Broken Palmyra, a book documenting the violence there in the 1980s.
A few weeks after the book was published, she was shot dead in front of her house. Despite claims blaming the assassination on other parties, Rajani’s daughters identified them as LTTE members.