University Teachers for Human Rights
- For the figure in Norse mythology, see Urðr
The University Teachers for Human Rights (Jaffna) or UTHR(J) was formed in 1988 at the University of Jaffna, Jaffna in Sri Lanka as part of the national organization University Teachers for Human Rights. Its public activities as a constituent part of university life came to a standstill following the assassination on September 21, 1989 of Dr. Rajani Thiranagama, a key founding member, by the rebel group Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. This has not been conclusively proven yet.
During the course of 1990 the others who identified openly with the UTHR(J), such as its current head Prof. Rajan Hoole, were forced to leave Jaffna.
It functions as an organization upholding the founding spirit of the UTHR(J) with its original aims: to challenge the external and internal terror engulfing the Sri Lankan Tamil community as a whole through making the perpetrators accountable, and to create space for humanizing the social and political spheres relating to the life of the community.
The UTHR(J) is no longer functioning within the University of Jaffna. Its latest report on documenting human rights abuses in Sri Lanka, as seen from its website, was on January 2, 2010.