the war as reinforcing the need for international intervention to protect and provide justice to Tamil people. As the 2009 Tamil diaspora protests gathered pace, she joined other activists in condemning the actions of the Sri Lankan government against the Tamil populace as a slow "systematic" genocide. Telling TIME that she didn't see anything wrong in sticking up for 300,000 trapped and dying people, M.I.A. stated that international governments were privy to Sri Lanka's use of widespread censorship and propaganda on the rebellion during the island's civil war to aid its impunity in numerous atrocities on civilians, but had no will to end it. Sri Lanka's Foreign Secretary denied that his country perpetrated genocide, responding that he felt M.I.A. was "misinformed" and that "it's best she stays with what she's good at, which is music, not politics." She has also appeared on Real Time with Bill Maher, as well as other television networks, to discuss the issues in Sri Lanka and critique the Sri Lankan government and their censorship of the media. She has been accused of being a "terrorist sympathiser" and "LTTE supporter" by the Sri Lankan government, even by public figures such as Oprah Winfrey, as was stated in a Rolling Stone magazine article, where the singer recalled their exchange: "She shut me down. She took that photo of me, but she was just like, 'I can't talk to you because you're crazy and you're a terrorist. And I'm like, 'I'm not. I'm a Tamil and there are people dying in my country and you have to like look at it because you're fucking Oprah and every American told me you're going to save the world." Two weeks before his death, the Tigers' Political Head B. Nadesan told Indian magazine, The Week, that he felt that M.I.A.'s humanitarianism had been a source of strength to Eelam Tamils and fearless, knowingly amidst the "all-powerful Sri Lankan propaganda machinery that demonises any one who speaks for the Tamils." Miranda Sawyer of The Observer highlighted that M.I.A. was emotional and that this could be limiting her, stating that while she was well informed, "you're not meant to get involved when giving information out about war", and that the difficulty for M.I.A. was that the world "doesn't really care." Hate mail, including death threats directed at M.I.A. and her son, has followed her activism, which she cited as an influence on the