SL military floats 5,000 cell phones for surveillance on Tamils in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 09 September 2014, 16:30 GMT]
The military intelligence of occupying Sri Lanka has distributed more than 5,000 cell phones to selected Tamil civilians in former LTTE administered areas in Vaakarai and Paduvaan-karai regions of Batticaloa district in an attempt to convert the recipients of the SL military 'gift' into informants and collaborators. 3,000 of the mobile phones have been provided to women. In the meantime, ex-LTTE members are being harassed to report at the SL military camps and instructed to collaborate with the SL military if they wished to avoid 'future problems', civil sources in Vaakarai say.

Those who have been utilized with the phones should be reporting if any outsiders visit their village.

The details of all the meetings that take place and the names of participants attending these meetings should be immediately reported to the SL military intelligence operatives, the SL intelligence officers have told the civilians. Those who fail to report will be identified as there are many individuals utilized with cell phones in the neighbourhood.

The cell phone monitoring has severely restricted the already compromised freedom of expression in Vaakarai and Paduvaan-karai areas, according to civil activists in the district.

The distributed cell phones are also being deployed to monitor the conversations among the people and to victimise people who could be exploited to collaborate with the genocidal military, civil activists in Vaakarai told TamilNet on Monday.

The family members having the SL military provided mobile phones are invited to camps at least once in a month. The SL military, monitoring the private conversations, has also been interfering in family disputes, the civil activists further say.