Tamil student leaders in Jaffna condemn SL Governor Cooray’s remarks in Colombo

[TamilNet, Friday, 22 July 2016, 19:47 GMT]
Reacting strongly against Colombo’s Governor to North Mr Reginald Cooray, who went on record in Colombo on Thursday claiming that the SL police in Jaffna was searching for an ‘absconding’ [Tamil] student, the Student Union leaders at the University of Jaffna told TamilNet Friday evening that they would launch a long-term boycott bringing the education activities to a standstill if Colombo regime was backing the controversial claim of Mr Cooray. In the meantime, the University administration in Jaffna and the University Grants Commission jointly invited all students to the University promising conducive environment at the Faculty of Science and that education activities have resumed in several other faculties.

Colombo should immediately end its supremacist harassments, which are ‘based upon the whims and fancies of the Sinhala Establishment in the South’ a student leader said.

Using the military-instigated episode at the University of Jaffna, there is an attempt by the University Grant Commission to ban the freedom of expression of Tamil students, especially with regards to memorial events in May and in November, the student leaders further told TamilNet.

The UGC has instructed the University administration that all events to be held within the University premises in future should secure official permission from the University Senate, informed sources said.

“If this is an attempt to suppress our memorial events, which we have observed amidst military harassments in the past, the move is in no way different to that of Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s military thinking,” a student leader commented.

The student leaders said they welcomed the unanimous position of the Northern Provincial Council that has demanded a wide-ranging Commission with broader mandates to determine the underlying causes behind the violence at the University.

In the meantime, a section of Tamil youth, mobilized by a Vavuniyaa based group, took to the streets on Friday opposing SL military occupation.

The group, calling itself ‘Northern Youth for Democracy’ staged a protest in front of Oamanthai military base and moved on to Ki'linochchi, to the city of Jaffna and finally to Maaviddapuram in Valikaamam North in buses marking their protests in front SL military bases in three of the five districts in the North. The SL military intelligence was busy taking photos and videos of those who participated in the protest.



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