Refugees and human rights activists are making their way to Bremen in north-west Germany for the funeral of a man who fought for freedom and safety for asylum seekers.
Viraj Mendis came to prominence after seeking sanctuary in a Manchester church where he spent two years in the 1980s. He died aged 68 on 16 August in Bremen, which offered him sanctuary after he was deported from the UK.
Mendis had lived in Manchester for 15 years in the 1970s and 1980s. His case hit the headlines after he sought and was granted sanctuary in the Ascension church in Hulme, an inner-city area of Manchester. He spent 760 days there, thought to be the longest period in the modern era that anyone had lived in sanctuary conditions in a church. He inhabited a 15ft by 9ft space in the sacristy, guarded by supporters from attacks by neo-Nazis who targeted the church.
Police stormed the church on 18 January 1989 and he was dragged out while still wearing his pyjamas. He was briefly taken to London’s Pentonville prison before being forcibly removed to Sri Lanka, where he feared for his life because of his high-profile activities in the UK criticising the Sri Lankan government for persecution of Tamils. He married Karen Roberts, a fellow political activist he met in Manchester in 1984, and both settled in Bremen.
In Germany he continued to dedicate his life to highlighting the persecution of Tamils by the Sri Lankan government and to fighting against the deportation of refugees to countries where they were at risk of persecution.
Mendis set up the International Human Rights Association in Bremen and worked with the Rome-based Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal to establish three international tribunals, in Dublin in 2010, Bremen in 2013 and Berlin in 2023, examining evidence of war crimes against Tamils in Sri Lanka. Towards the end of his life he was still attending campaign meetings with an oxygen cylinder in tow.
Mendis, a “maths genius” according to some of his friends, came to Manchester from Sri Lanka in 1973 aged 17 to study electrical engineering at the University of Manchester.
He became politically active by fighting for the rights of his country’s Tamil population – he was of Sinhalese heritage – and involved himself in anti-deportation campaigns, working with others to halt the removal of about 15 people from the UK.
His politics were radical and he supported the Revolutionary Communist Group. The UK government issued him with a deportation order in 1984. After his final appeal against removal failed, he approached Father John Methuen and requested sanctuary at the Ascension church. Methuen and members of the parochial council agreed to his request and on 20 December 1986 he entered the church.
His case and the defence campaign mounted to try to prevent his deportation raised awareness nationally about Britain’s immigration policies.
While Mendis was loathed by the UK government, with ministers determined to make an example of him, the many refugees he helped and the human rights activists with whom he worked took a different view. Some of them are travelling from the UK, France, Switzerland, Norway, the Netherlands, Denmark and Ireland to attend his funeral at St Pauli church in Bremen on Saturday. The Ascension church in Hulme is holding a vigil for him between 10am and noon.
Speaking to the Guardian, his bereaved wife, Karen Mendis, said: “So many people wouldn’t be able to have any kind of life without the things Viraj did to help them and so many are devastated by his death. His funeral will be a celebration of his life and work. This work will continue.”
