Rajapaksa to visit China for fourth time since 2007

[TamilNet, Sunday, 31 July 2011, 07:30 GMT]
Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapaksa is scheduled to make another official visit to China in the second week of August, Colombo media reports. Rajapaksa's last visit to China was in November 2010 as a special guest to attend the Expo 2010 Exhibition in Shanghai. Since 2007 Mahinda Rajapakse had visited China thrice and the oncoming visit would be his fourth, Colombo media reported quoting foreign ministry sources.
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Nirupama, India’s ambassador-designate to US, meets Rajapaksa

[TamilNet, Saturday, 30 July 2011, 17:29 GMT]
India’s Foreign Secretary Nirupama Menon Rao who will be retiring on Sunday is on a three-day visit to Colombo. Arriving on Friday night she had a breakfast meeting with Mahinda Rajapaksa on Saturday. The Hindu, saying that the meeting was a result of spontaneous invitation from Rajapaksa, cited officials describing the meeting as a “farewell” Rajapaksa had wanted to accord her because of the special relationship she shared with the country. But political observers said Nirupama’s fascination with Colombo on the eve of her retirement is connected to her new assignment as India’s ambassador to the US.
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Court prepares for judicial review as EU continues LTTE proscription

[TamilNet, Saturday, 30 July 2011, 17:12 GMT]
European Union (EU) Council, comprising the heads of state of the [twenty seven] EU member states, along with the President of the European Commission and the President of the European Council, has decided to further extend the proscription of the Liberation Tigers from September. Meanwhile, the same EU Council is mandated by EU law to respond in writing to the case (T-208/11-9) filed by Amsterdam-based Bohler Advocaten attorney, Victor Koppe, on behalf of the Liberation Tigers at the Luxembourg-based European Court of Justice before the third week of September, legal sources closer to the EU case said.
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Court inquires into Writ Petition regarding disappeared Tamil youth

[TamilNet, Saturday, 30 July 2011, 17:03 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s Court of Appeal Wednesday directed the Sri Lanka Treasury Secretary and the Secretary to the Foreign Affairs Ministry to appear in court on September 7 on a writ application filed by the father of a disappeared Tamil youth, as the Government of Sri Lanka has failed to pay compensation of 3 million rupees recommended by the United Nations Human Rights Committee (UNHRC). The youth, Thevaraja Sarma, was reported missing in Trincomalee on 23 June 1990 after his arrest by the Sri Lanka Army.
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Attack on news editor exposes post-war state of media freedom: SLTMA

[TamilNet, Saturday, 30 July 2011, 13:02 GMT]
Sri Lanka Tamil Media Alliance (SLTMA), a Colombo based Tamil journalists association on Saturday condemned the attack on Gnanasundaram Kuhanathan, the news editor of Uthayan Tamil Daily in Jaffna, and said that the attack reported within 6 days after the conclusion of the civic elections has cast severe doubts. The government of Sri Lanka claims that it has has brought media democracy and freedom of expression to Jaffna, but the journalists are continuously harassed and threatened, the media watchdog said.
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Colonization to engulf Thiriyaay as Colombo allocates 3000 acres for Buddhist vihare

[TamilNet, Saturday, 30 July 2011, 12:14 GMT]
Nearly three thousand acres in Thiriyaay, a traditional Tamil village, located about 42 km off north of Trincomalee town have been earmarked to be declared as sacred area for a Buddhist Vihare called Girihandu Seya. The Vihare caters exclusively for Sinhala Buddhists from the south of Sri Lanka.
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News Editor attacked in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Friday, 29 July 2011, 15:08 GMT]
Two unidentified men who came in a motorbike attacked the Chief News Editor of Uthayan Daily in Jaffna, Gnanasundaram Kuganathan, Friday around 7:45 p.m., causing serious injuries to the 59-year-old news editor. Till the end of war, Mr. Kuganathan was living inside the paper office for 3 years as the news paper had come under attacks by occupying SL Army-backed operatives in May 2006 and in March 2009. The staff at the paper office have been threatened by the EPDP paramilitary on several occasions. The timing of the attack signals that it was a ‘punishment’ by the SL military intelligence not favouring the ruling UPFA alliance during the campaign for civic elections.
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Puththa'lam HR activist body exhumed in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Friday, 29 July 2011, 10:40 GMT]
The body of a human rights activist Pattani Razik, 55, who was reported disappeared 18 months ago was exhumed from a half built private house in Kaavathumunai in the presence of Vaazhaich-cheanai Magistrate Thursday. At that time of disappearance Razik was the Director of the Puththalam Social Trust Fund. Razik, head of the Community Trust Fund (CTF), a Sri Lankan NGO based in the town of Puththa'lam disappeared since February 11, 2010, while travelling to Polonnaruwa from Puththa'lam.
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Unidentified persons erase Arab letters from street name boards

[TamilNet, Friday, 29 July 2011, 10:35 GMT]
A group of unidentified persons had erased the Arabic letters written along with Tamil, Sinhala and English languages on street name boards within the administrative limit of the Kaaththaankudi Urban Council in Batticaloa district. Residents have lodged a complaint with the SL Police in Kaaththaankudi, according civil society sources.
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CEB workers in North, East protest demanding salary arrears

[TamilNet, Thursday, 28 July 2011, 20:15 GMT]
Ceylon Electricity Board workers in Trincomalee and Jaffna on Tuesday and Wednesday staged protests demanding immediate payment of salary arrears for 10 months. While the Sri Lankan government has been waging a propaganda inviting foreign countries to invest money in a “developing Sri Lanka”, the State is unable to pay salary arrears for more than 10 months, CEB workers in Jaffna said Wednesday. For the first time after several years, electricity board workers from North and South joined in the protest that took place in front of CEP office situated on KKS Road.
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No more faith in Colombo’s peace and reconciliation: Indian women

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 27 July 2011, 16:06 GMT]
Prominent women’s rights activists in India in a statement this week said that they had stopped believing in Colombo's periodic pledges to bring about reconciliation in the country, reports Indian Express. "We no longer believe the empty promises of the Sri Lankan government to bring peace and reconciliation, and strongly demand immediate action that will convince us of the seriousness of this intent," the statement of the rights activists said. Saying that women were among the worst hit in the dragging conflict in Sri Lanka that began in 1983, the activists faulted the Sri Lankan government for not acknowledging the range of rights violations committed by its armed forces, even two years after the Tamil Tigers were crushed and condemned the Indian government for its silence and participation.
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Diaspora Tamil to perform at The Proms

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 27 July 2011, 04:46 GMT]
A young Diaspora Tamil will perform Wednesday evening alongside leading South Indian vocalist Aruna Sairam at the first Carnatic concert as part of the BBC Proms. Veena virtuoso Hari Sivanesan, the latest recipient of the BBC Radio 3 World Routes Academy, is a student of Smt Sivasakthi Sivanesan, one of the UK's foremost Carnatic figures, and is mentored by Aruna Sairam, widely regarded as the leading South Indian female vocalist of her generation. Whilst Sivanesan was at university, Sitar Maestro Ravi Shankar invited him to tour with his forty concert "Festival of India" tour throughout the States. The Proms, considered the world’s greatest classical music festival is underway in London's Royal Albert Hall.
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Canadian Tamils unveil memorial, remember victims of Black July

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 27 July 2011, 01:30 GMT]
Glen Murray, Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP) for Toronto Centre, working with Canadian-Tamil youth, unveiled a plaque at a Tamil Memorial Tree Planting event at Evergreen Brick Works – a community environmental centre, Saturday honoring the tens of thousands Tamil lives lost in the struggle for human rights in Sri Lanka. Erected hours before the Black July remembrance event, the memorial commemorates the events of Black July 1983 to Mu'l'livaikkaal of May 2009, the organizers said. Later in the day, in a memorial event organized by National Council of Canadian Tamils (NCCT), Canadian-Tamils gathered at Queens Park –Toronto, to remember the victims of Black July- bracing the heavy rains.
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Basil inaugurates KKS Harbour project, makes money on Jaffna limestone

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 26 July 2011, 22:01 GMT]
After the agreement entered between New Delhi and Colombo last week on carrying out a wide-ranging “rehabilitation” project of Kaangkeasanthu'rai (KKS) harbour in the SL Army occupied High Security Zone in Valikaamam, Jaffna, Indian engineers have already started to work on removing the wreckage of at least 6 Sri Lanka Navy and government owned ships that were sunk by the LTTE in the war. The wreckage had been blocking access for large vessels to reach the harbour. In the meantime, reports from the Sri Lanka Navy sources in Jaffna said that the SL presidential sibling and “development” minister Basil Rajapaksa has sold tonnes of high quality quarried limestone that has been stored in KKS, to an Indian company, making personal profit from the sales.
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When Kohona met Diaz

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 26 July 2011, 01:41 GMT]
After meeting the head of Amnesty International’s UN office, Jose Luis Diaz, last week, Sri Lanka’s permanent representative to the UN, Palitha Kohona, issued a statement with his account of what happened. The lengthy statement, published on the Sri Lankan mission’s website, suggested Amnesty had sought the meeting with Kohona, and had received a dressing down from him, in the face of which the rights group had been silent. The statement also detailed what Dr. Kohona had supposedly lectured Amnesty on. Amnesty, however, has a different recollection of what happened. To begin with, it was Sri Lanka that had sought ‘constructive dialogue’. Moreover, rather than a dialogue, the meeting had been one of Sri Lankan denials of any wrongdoing.
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Remembering Sri Lanka’s longer history of mass killing of Tamils

[TamilNet, Monday, 25 July 2011, 02:40 GMT]
British Tamils held a candle light vigil Saturday evening opposite the Prime Minister’s official residence, 10 Downing Street, to remember victims of Sri Lanka’s 1983 ‘Black July’ anti-Tamil pogrom. Six days of mob violence, organized by ruling politicians and abetted by Sri Lanka’s security forces, which began on July 23 that year killed over three thousand people, and emptied the capital, Colombo, of Tamils. On Saturday, a thousand British Tamils dressed in black and carrying black flags and Eelam national flags, held a vigil between 6 and 9 pm, with lit candles and banners commemorating the pogrom. For several hours before the vigil began, activists and supporters handed out leaflets in the surrounding Whitehall area. The events were organized by the British Tamil Forum.
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Colombo is not conducive to reconciliation or co-existence: New Zealand MP

[TamilNet, Sunday, 24 July 2011, 17:51 GMT]
“We see every action pursued by the Government of Sri Lanka after the war being malignant towards the Tamils and are not conducive to reconciliation or co-existence. It is time for TNA to explain to the Governments of the world the ground situation in Sri Lanka,” said New Zealand parliamentarian Keith Locke while addressing a gathering in Auckland, on Saturday that remembered Black July, the pogram against Eezham Tamils in the island of Sri Lanka in 1983. In a calculated move genocidal Sri Lanka chose 23 July, the remenmbrance day to conduct civic elections in the country of Eezham Tamils. But it didn’t prevent Eezham Tamils in many parts of the world from observing the day, which marks the times that impelled the actual beginnings of their militant struggle.
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TNA councilors swearing in event to be held in Ki'linochchi

[TamilNet, Sunday, 24 July 2011, 16:24 GMT]
Chairmen and members elected to the local authorities on behalf of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) in the North and East will be sworn in at a special event held to be held in Ki'linochchi town in the first week of August, said Mr.R.Sampanthan, leader of the TNA and the Trincomalee district parliamentarian.
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TNA wins Trincomalee Town and Gravets PS

[TamilNet, Sunday, 24 July 2011, 05:14 GMT]
The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) has captured the administration of the Trincomalee Town and Gravets Piratheasa Chapai in the election held Saturday. The TNA polled 8,986 votes and won five seats in the nine-member council. The United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) polled 6,353 votes and obtained 3 seats and he United National Party (UNP) polled 2,869 votes and obtained one seat. However, the TNA failed to secure power in the Kuchchave'li PS.
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Batticaloa Tamil political detainees begin hunger strike

[TamilNet, Sunday, 24 July 2011, 02:55 GMT]
Seven Tamil political prisoners began hunger strike from Saturday morning in protest to the assault on three fellow inmates by jail guards, civil sources in Batticaloa said. The protesting prisoners demanded that all detainees be provided with better facilities, detainees should be given separate cells and that harassment of prisoners by prison officials should stop. The protesters added that the hunger-strike will continue until the demands are met.
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EPDP assaults youth leader of TNA in Ki'linochchi

[TamilNet, Saturday, 23 July 2011, 19:14 GMT]
Ki'linohchi EPDP chief organizer V. Thavanathan and Sri Lanka Army intelligence personnel at Viveakaananthaa Nakar in Ki'linochchi severely assulted the youth wing leader of the Ilangkai Thamizh Arasuk Kadchi (ITAK) of Ki'linochchi district Suntharalingam Lokeswaran while he was returning from a polling booth Saturday aroiund 4:30 p.m. Mr. Lokeswaran was admitted to the Ki'linochchil hospital and was later transferred to Jaffna Teaching Hospital with serious injuries, reports from Ki'linohchi said.
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TNA wins Thirukkoayil PS in East

[TamilNet, Saturday, 23 July 2011, 19:06 GMT]
Tamil National Alliance (TNA) has secured 72.87% of the votes polled in Thirukkoayil Piratheasa Chapai (PS) in Ampaa'rai district. The ruling UPFA and the UNP received one seat each. The victory of the TNA in Thirukkoayil in Ampaa'rai is an expression of Eezham Tamil unity across the Northern and Eastern Provinces, political observers in Colombo said.
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TNA wins civic elections in North

[TamilNet, Saturday, 23 July 2011, 17:58 GMT]
Despite widespread SLA harassments in Ki'linochchi administrative district and violations by UPFA-EPDP of election practices in Jaffna, the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) has won the civic elections in North by more than two third majority in all of the urban councils and most of the Piratheasa-Chapai (PS). Of 16 Piratheasa Chapais, the TNA has won 14. The UPFA captured two islands off Jaffna, Neduntheevu (Delft) and Oorkaavat-thu'rai (Kayts). These islands were completely sealed off for campaign by the occupying SL Navy. The SL Governor for the Eastern Province who was formerly a Navy commander in the islands was brought to Delft for Rajapaksa's election campaign. In Ki'linochchi, where Rajapaksa regime let loose its military even on the election day, the TNA has managed to secure at least 50% of the polled votes. In Mullaiththeevu, the TNA secured 7 seats polling 72% of the votes.
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Widespread SLA attacks reported on voters, candidates in Ki'linochchi

[TamilNet, Saturday, 23 July 2011, 13:02 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lanka Army let loose its soldiers in civil cloths on house-to-house attack in many of the villages in Ki'linochchi district in the early hours of Saturday, causing panic and fear among the voters in Vanni and forcing the voters to stay inside their houses. The armed men in civil, speaking broken Tamil, came in vehicles as early as 3:00 a.m. and attacked the civilians instructing them to stay indoors on the election day. Knowing that it would be difficult to entirely change the mindset of the people of Jaffna, the SLA was ordered to stay inside the barracks in Jaffna. But, the SLA was deployed in Ki'linochchi, threatening both the candidates and voters, with a clear intent to capture the councils by intimidation.
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46% votes in civic elections in Jaffna by end of Saturday

[TamilNet, Saturday, 23 July 2011, 08:27 GMT]
46% of registered voters in Jaffna exercised their votes in the civic elections on Saturday, election officials in Jaffna told media. Ruling UPFA men were seen in almost all election booths, violating the election rules by distributing notices and watching that their posters were not removed from the walls. In the islets off Jaffna, the voters were given alcohol by UPFA-EPDP personnel and there were widespread reports that the voters were allowed to enter the booths without proper identity checking. The Sri Lanka Army largely remained in their positions. SL Police was in duty. The voting will be taking place till Saturday 4:00 p.m.
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91 killed in Norway, Tamil politician escapes massacre

[TamilNet, Friday, 22 July 2011, 20:38 GMT]
At least four Eezham Tamil youths, including a politician of the ruling Labour Party of Norway, Khamshajiny Gunaratnam, were amongst those who escaped the indiscriminate shooting by a lone gunman at the summer camp of the youth wing of the party (AUF) on Friday. The attack killed at least 84 people. A short-while before the gunman struck at the camp held at Utøya island, a bomb blast ripped through the political enclave of central Oslo, killing at least seven people and injuring many more in the locality where government offices and ministries including the Prime Minister's Office are located. Oslo police are questioning a 32-year-old ethnic Norwegian man, who is reportedly a right-wing extremist, in connection with both the attacks, described by Norwegian media as the worst episode of violence in the country since World War II.
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US Congress panel votes to bar aid to Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Friday, 22 July 2011, 03:01 GMT]
A US congressional committee voted Thursday to ban aid to Sri Lanka pending "accountability" over atrocities in the final months of the armed conflict in 2009, AFP reported. In a voice vote, the House Foreign Affairs Committee approved a measure that would ban all US government funding to Sri Lanka except for humanitarian aid, demining and activities to promote democracy and governance.
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Rajapaksa gives Tamil Nadu trio stage fright

[TamilNet, Friday, 22 July 2011, 02:47 GMT]
Three film singers from Tamil Nadu who had accepted a Sri Lankan government invitation to perform for Tamils in the former warzone town of Kilinochchi pulled out Thursday after finding out the event was to be part of the ruling party’s election campaign and that Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapaksa would be attending, Indian press reports said. Mano, Krish and Suchitra (eds: single names only) were “shocked” to discover this whilst at Colombo airport waiting for their special military flight to Kilinochchi, and were hurriedly returning to Tamil Nadu, where their visit had triggered controversy, the reports said.
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India signs MoU with Colombo to ‘rehabilitate’ KKS harbour

[TamilNet, Friday, 22 July 2011, 00:27 GMT]
The government of India entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Rajapaksa regime of Sri Lanka on Thursday to carry out a “complex and wide-ranging project” to “rehabilitate” the Kaangkeasanthu'rai (KKS) harbour in the SL Army occupied High Security Zone in Valikaamam, Jaffna.
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SL Minister Nanayakara accepts mass killings of civilians in Vanni

[TamilNet, Thursday, 21 July 2011, 22:57 GMT]
A top minister in Mahinda Rajapaksa regime has publicly accepted the mass-scale killing of Tamil civilians during the final months of the war in 2009. SL Minister and the leader of Democratic Left Front (DLF), Vasudeva Nanayakara on Tuesday said that his party accepted the important fact that innocent civilians have been killed during the Vanni war. Amid growing international pressure for an international probe into the credible allegations of war crimes in Sri Lanka, Mr. Nanayakara, who was on a propaganda drive seeking the public in Jaffna to support the Rajapaksa alliance in the upcoming civic elections in North, said that Tamils could only exert meaningful pressure on the SL government by supporting his alliance.
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BJP vows to take up Eezham Tamils plight in Indian Parliament

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 20 July 2011, 07:10 GMT]
Bharatiya Janata Party President Nitin Gadkari who met a top delegation of the British Tamils Forum (BTF) last weekend in London, has said that the BJP was very serious on taking up the ‘Sri Lanka issue’ in the Indian Lok-Sabha. BTF leaders V Ravi Kumar and S. Pathmanathan, who led the BTF delegation to the meeting with the visiting Indian politicians, expressed hope that the BJP would be consulting Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Ms Jayalalithaa on the plight of Eezham Tamils and that the Indian leaders would also be meeting the Tamil representatives from the occupied country of Eezham Tamils. The BJP is yet to adopt a stand on the accountability issue on the question of Eezham Tamils and the genocide committed on them.
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TNA: Sri Lanka performance lacking on solving key Tamil issues

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 19 July 2011, 11:04 GMT]
While Tamil National Alliance (TNA) has endeavored to work in the spirit of co-operation with the Sri Lanka Government, the Government has yet to address the Rehabilitation and Resettlement of all displaced Tamil families, continued to unlawfully repossess the land from Tamil people, and has failed to craft a political solution within the framework of united and undivided country that will enable the Tamil people to live in security and dignity, fulfilling their legitimate political, economic, social and cultural aspirations, TNA said in a press release issued before the local authority elections in the North East. "The Government has not even kept its several commitments to the Tamil National Alliance on the release of Tamil detainees," the release added.
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Australia’s cricketers should shun repressive Sri Lanka - TYO

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 19 July 2011, 01:30 GMT]
Australia’s cricketers should take a principled stand in defence of human rights and justice, and boycott Sri Lankan cricket until the Colombo government heeds international calls for an independent investigation into the mass killings of Tamil civilians in 2009, the Tamil Youth Organisation (TYO) urged Monday. “Sport is inseparable from politics. Nothing gives a repressive regime greater legitimacy, and makes light of its brutal conduct, than continuing sporting links,” the TYO said in a statement.
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Vavuniyaa prisoners end hunger strike

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 19 July 2011, 00:18 GMT]
Following the visit to Vavuniyaa prison by Mannaar Bishop, Rayappu Joseph, and giving assurances that the Bishop will work for prisoners release, the Tamil inmates who have been conducting a fast-to-death campaign for the past eight days, agreed to end the campaign Monday evening, sources in Vavuniyaa said. Three prisoners with deteriorating health were admitted to the Vavuniyaa hospital.
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ICG: Sri Lanka further from reconciliation than ever

[TamilNet, Monday, 18 July 2011, 17:28 GMT]
President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s authoritarian and Sinhalese nationalist post-war policies are undermining prospects for reconciling Sri Lanka’s ethnic communities, weakening democracy for all Sri Lankans and increasing the risk of a return to violent conflict, the International Crisis Group warned Monday, announcing its latest report, ‘Reconciliation in Sri Lanka: Harder than Ever’. “Sri Lanka may be ‘post-war’, but it will never be ‘post-conflict’ until all its people are free to build a credible narrative of its past and to play meaningful roles in their own governance, ” says Alan Keenan, Crisis Group’s Senior Analyst on Sri Lanka.
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Heavy tides drowns fishing boat, 2 fishermen reported missing in Poonakari

[TamilNet, Monday, 18 July 2011, 09:12 GMT]
Two fishermen from Valaippaadu, a coastal village in the Poonakari division of Ki'linochchi were reported missing after their fishing boat drowned due to heavy tides on Saturday. The two reported missing were former LTTE members who were released from Sri Lanka Army detention recently. Poverty-stricken fishermen in ‘resettled’ Poonakari are forced to brave the seas amidst bad weather, strong winds and rough seas to sustain their livelihood.
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Political prisoner admitted to Vavuniyaa hospital

[TamilNet, Monday, 18 July 2011, 08:48 GMT]
One of the 42 Tamil political prisoners, 40-year-old Kattaiyan Logeswaran, currently on fasting unto death campaign in Vavuniyaa prison demanding their release was admitted to the Vavuniyaa general hospital Sunday as his condition was reported to be critical.
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Colombo's "Road Show" on $1Billion, Ten-Year Bond

[TamilNet, Sunday, 17 July 2011, 17:22 GMT]
AFP reported last week that Sri Lankan officials have been visiting several international financial centers, including New York and Los Angeles this week to promote Sri Lanka's 10 year one billion dollar bond sale. The lead banks approached by the Sri Lanka officials include HSBC, Bank of America, Merryl Lynch, Royal Bank of Scotland and Barclays Bank, according to the AFP report.
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Paramilitary groups clash in East

[TamilNet, Sunday, 17 July 2011, 09:37 GMT]
Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan alias Karuna, a paramilitary leader and “resettlement” deputy minister in Rajapaksa regime, has attacked a leading supporter of Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan alias Pilliayan, another para military group leader and chief minister of the Eastern Provincial Council at a public event held in Kiraan, Batticaloa, on Friday.
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Tamil political prisoners stage hunger strike in Vavuniyaa prison

[TamilNet, Saturday, 16 July 2011, 19:52 GMT]
Forty Tamil political prisoners detained in the Vavuniyaa prison Saturday started a fast unto death demanding immediate release from prison. The number of prisoners on hunger strike has risen to 44 including the 4 who began their fast a week ago. The prisoners have been demanding that the government should take immediate measures to expedite their cases against them now pending in law courts for several years without inquiry. The condition of the four prisoners who started their fast a week ago is reported to be in critical state, civil sources in Vavuniyaa said.
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US Congressman: "Gruesome example of Humans at their worst"

[TamilNet, Saturday, 16 July 2011, 03:52 GMT]
Congressman James McGovern, co-chair of a US Congress human rights commission named in honor of late lawmaker Tom Lantos, described the Channel-4 documentary, Sri Lanka's Killing Fields, as "a gruesome example of humans at their worst," AFP reported after the 50-minute documentary was shown at the U.S. Capitol Complex Friday as US lawmakers and rights advocates stepped up calls for an international probe into Sri Lanka's civil war. Nearly 300 people including several senior and influential Congressional staff, diplomats from different countries and State Department officials, and members of the public attended the screening in the auditorium with a seating capacity of 450.
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International Criminal Court, Commonwealth Secretariat sign MoU

[TamilNet, Friday, 15 July 2011, 20:08 GMT]
Commonwealth Secretary General Kamalesh Sharma, on Wednesday signed an MoU with the International Criminal Court, to strengthen and develop co-operation between the two organizations to jointly support States implementing International Criminal Law. Legal circles in Colombo opined that Sri Lanka not being a signatory to the Rome Statute, the country of Eezham Tamils occupied by Sri Lanka, would not be a beneficiary of this MoU. However, they said that it is a good sign to see the Commonwealth Secretary General Sharma, who once stated that he had no mandate to question Sri Lanka on its human rights violations perpetrated on Tamil people, has started to move in the right direction with the signing of this MoU.
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Former LTTE member reported missing in Colombo

[TamilNet, Friday, 15 July 2011, 19:24 GMT]
A former LTTE member, who was detained by the Sri Lanka Army for more than one year after the Vanni war and released 9 months ago, has been reported missing in Colombo since 08 July. The missing person, 36-year-old Nanthakumar Navaratnaraja from Koddadi in Jaffna, had come to Colombo to travel abroad. On July 08, he went out from the hotel where he was staying at around 4:30 p.m. and has since been reported missing, his father said in the complaint to the police and human rights groups.
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SL Army in Jaffna harasses JVP campaigners from South

[TamilNet, Friday, 15 July 2011, 18:02 GMT]
After curbing the Tamil National Alliance from conducting campaign meetings ahead of civic elections in North, the occupying Sri Lanka Army of Mahinda Rajapaksa regime now harasses the other opposition parties that come from the South for election campaign. The JVP campaigners in Jaffna told media Thursday that a Brigadier rank officer of the SL military headquarters in Palaali in Jaffna had phoned and threatened them when they went to the SL Police to complain against the harassments by the SLA soldiers.
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SL governor threatens Vanni NGOs to ‘donate’ money to Buddhist stupas

[TamilNet, Thursday, 14 July 2011, 16:08 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s colonial governor for the country of Eezham Tamils in the north, Maj. Gen. Chandrasri is now completely obsessed with building Buddhist stupas, Sinhala colonisation and Sinhalicisation of administration, news sources in Jaffna said. Building Buddhist stupas at Old Park in Jaffna, where the provincial administration is located, and at Mullaiththeevu town, the occupying SL governor threatens the NGOs working in Vanni to pay ‘unaccounted’ money for his projects. NGOs working in Vanni have to get annual clearance from the SL president’s ‘special task force’ and the colonial governor makes use of this situation to fleece money from the NGOs.
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Genuine elections not possible in Jaffna: TNA

[TamilNet, Thursday, 14 July 2011, 15:15 GMT]
Thoroughly intimidated and prevented from making their campaign for the civic elections scheduled for next week, the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) leaders on Tuesday said that genuine elections are not possible under the current circumstances. Colombo is resolved to fake the elections by hook or by crook and ‘prove’ to the outside world that it is having ‘democratic’ support of the Tamils, the TNA leaders said. Meanwhile, Sinhala officers brought into the administration of Northern Provincial Council by the SL colonial governor, Chandrasri, are now in command, making arbitrary orders and the Tamil officers have to be silent and subservient, fearing transfer if resist, Tamil civil service circles said. They are disappointed that the TNA is not highlighting their predicament at ‘proper places’.
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Volunteer teachers of Vanni demonstrate for permanency

[TamilNet, Thursday, 14 July 2011, 15:14 GMT]
Around 150 volunteer teachers serving in Vanni demonstrated in front of the regional education office located at Muththiraich-chanthi in Nalloor, Jaffna, on Wednesday, demanding permanent appointments for them. While the volunteer teachers in the rest of the island had been made permanent, the volunteer teachers in Vanni had been victimised as they had been working in the territory of the LTTE, the demonstrating teachers complained.
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SL Navy, EPDP, seal off election campaign in the islands of Jaffna

[TamilNet, Thursday, 14 July 2011, 13:47 GMT]
Occupying Sri Lanka Navy and the EPDP collaborating with Rajapaksa regime have sealed off the islands sector of the Jaffna Peninsula for the civic elections scheduled to 23rd of this month, by ordering the TNA candidates not to leave the islands and by preventing TNA campaigners coming into the islands sector from outside. In the meantime, former SL Navy commander who was earlier occupying the islands and now holding the office of the Governor of the Eastern Province has been brought to the islands as in-charge of Rajapaksa’s election campaign in the Delft Island. While the SL Governor of the East, who is a ‘government servant’ being deployed in the campaign is highly questionable, the SL Governor of the North is also engaged in electioneering, setting new definitions to democracy, comment the public.
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SL government servants in Jaffna complain political exploitation

[TamilNet, Thursday, 14 July 2011, 12:59 GMT]
Tamil public servants working under Rajapaksa Administration occupying the Tamil country, now openly complain that they are exploited in Colombo’s electioneering. The occupying government forces them to do election campaign, the civil officers accuse. Colombo particularly pressurises them to claim the development work undertaken by the World Bank, Asian Development Bank and the UN Agencies, as those of the achievements of the Rajapaksa government, the civil officers said. In this regard, they are forced to use public funds to send ads to local newspapers, they further said. Local newspapers said that everyday they receive around 10 such ads, but many of the newspapers shun publishing the ads fearing public backlash.
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SL police refuses permission to TNA to hold election meetings

[TamilNet, Thursday, 14 July 2011, 11:44 GMT]
Sri Lanka police in Jaffna refuses permission to civic election candidates of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) to conduct public meetings. Instead, the ‘advise’ the candidates to engage in door-to-door campaign. But in the meantime, presidential sibling Basil Rajapaksa and a team of 13 SL ministers are camping in Jaffna to conduct Colombo’s campaign in various ways, misusing SL government’s administration and resources, complain the TNA candidates. SL president Mahinda Rajapaksa is also expected in Jaffna to campaign for the civic elections in the guise of opening a school building and laying foundation stones for certain projects.
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Defamation suit filed against terror "expert" in Canada

[TamilNet, Thursday, 14 July 2011, 11:07 GMT]
The Canadian Tamil Congress (CTC) is suing in Superior Court of Justice in Toronto, a Singapore-based “terrorism” expert for defamation of CTC, Toronto Star reported. The plaintiffs charge that in an interview to a Sri Lankan newspaper, Rohan Gunaratne had said that "the outlawed Tamil Tigers organization was operating in Canada under the name of “the Canadian Tamil Congress.”"
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Colombo plotting to reduce Tamil voters’ strength in North, East

[TamilNet, Thursday, 14 July 2011, 11:01 GMT]
Sri Lanka government has been executing a plot to reduce the voting strength of Tamil people in the north and east province by involving village level state officers who are designated as Grama Niladhari (GN), residents in the East say. Civil sources claimed that Colombo authorities have directed village level officers not to issue receipts to chief occupants when they collect application forms enrolling them as voters for the 2011 electoral register.
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USA, Sri Lanka co-host Security Conference in Colombo

[TamilNet, Thursday, 14 July 2011, 07:15 GMT]
The US Pacific Command (PACOM) and United States Center for Civil Military Relations (CCMR) conduct South Asia Maritime Conference in collaboration with genocidal Sri Lanka at Hotel Galadari in Colombo this week, from Monday to Friday. The US Ambassador in Colombo, Patricia A. Butenis and SL Navy Commander Somathilake Dissanayake were at the inaugural session on Monday. The conference on maritime security of South Asia is attended by Bangladesh, Maldives, Sri Lanka, Australia and the USA.
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14-year-old boy taken for anti-UN demonstration reported missing

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 13 July 2011, 22:45 GMT]
A 14-year-old student of Yarltan College in Kaarainakar, Jaffna, Thiruchelvan Kajeethan, who was enticed by the EPDP and taken to Colombo to participate in the anti-UN panel report demonstration that took place on May Day, is so far missing. The parents of the grade-6 student, disappointed in getting a reply from the EPDP have approached TNA parliamentarians in Jaffna to find out what had happened to the boy. In recent times, there are many instances of school children, below the age of sixteen, missing in the country of Eezham Tamils.
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SLA, paramilitary, extort money from traders in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 13 July 2011, 10:43 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers and cadres of para military groups under the guise of civil administration are allegedly extorting money from traders who come to Batticaloa town from Paduvaankarai area, sources in Batticaloa said. Sri Lanka army soldiers and para military groups are also being accused of forcibly taking produce brought by traders at several check points.
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Capitol Hill Screening of “Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields”

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 13 July 2011, 02:05 GMT]
Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International-USA, the International Crisis Group, and Open Society Foundations in conjunction with the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission are co-hosting the screening of Channel-4's documentary "Sri Lanka's Killing Fields" at the Congressional Auditorium this Friday according to political sources in Washington D.C.
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Tamil university students in Canada organise to protect national identity

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 13 July 2011, 02:01 GMT]
The Tamil Youth Organization (TYO-Canada) organized on Sunday ‘Transition 101’, an orientation designed to educate about the role of TYO and the Tamil Students Association (TSA) on university campuses across Canada. The second annual event was held in Toronto’s York University. “Transition 101 is designed to educate our fellow youth activists in universities about community engagement, nation-building, the importance of preserving Tamil identity, language and culture,” said TYO spokesperson Priyanth Nallaratnam.
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Sri Lanka loses oil hedging case amid petrol fiasco

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 13 July 2011, 01:58 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s state run oil firm, CPC, will have to pay Standard Chartered bank over $160m plus interests for non-payment of dues, a London court ruled Monday, in relation to a controversial 2007 hedging deal the firm had entered into with Standard Chartered and four other international banks, Reuters reported. Two more of these, Citi Bank and Deutsche Bank, have cases pending against CPC in the Singapore-based International Court for Settlement of Investment Disputes for around $190 million and $63 million plus interest payments respectively, Reuters added. Meanwhile, CPC has been hit by another fiasco after the government knowingly releasing for sale 20,000 metric tonnes of low quality petrol that could damage engines.
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Colombo government interferes with district development: TNA MP

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 12 July 2011, 07:41 GMT]
The Colombo government has introduced a subtle method to delay the development at district level by instructing all parliamentarians to submit their allocation under the district decentralized budget (DCB) to the SL Ministry of Economic Development for approval instead of forwarding it to district secretariats. Normally all district parliamentarians submit their allocations under the DCB to district secretariats and approved by District Development Committee (DDC). Batticaloa district Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian Mr.P.Ariyanethran has said that the deviation from several decades’ old practice has been adopted by the central authorities as a step to delay the district level development at a time all clamour for more devolution of powers at district level.
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Father of slain woman on Kathirkaamam pilgrimage rules out rape

[TamilNet, Monday, 11 July 2011, 10:57 GMT]
31-year-old mother of two children, Santhakumari Krishnapillai, from Thampiluvil, Batticaloa, who was on a pilgrimage to Kathirkaamam was found slain in the early hours of Sunday was killed by an animal, the father of the victim told media Tuesday. The incident took place near the riverside of Va’l’liyamman Temple at Kathirkaamam. On Tuesday, the father of the woman, who was also on the pilgrimage, ruled out rape and said his daughter went aside from the group looking for a toilet pit and that he found her body after he heard her screaming for help.
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Threats escalate on TNA candidates ahead of civic elections in North

[TamilNet, Monday, 11 July 2011, 04:54 GMT]
Following the Sri Lanka Army attack on Tamil National Alliance (TNA) meeting last month and the systematic harassment on building owners not to provide their halls to TNA for campaign meetings, the residences of various candidates of the TNA, including the former parliamentarian M.K. Sivajilingam, have been targeted by SLA-operated squads that are engaged in threatening the candidates. In the early hours of Saturday, a gang that came in two white-coloured Hiace vehicles threw dirt baskets at the residence of Mr. Sivajilingam. On the same day, the residence of Mr. Subramaniyam, another candidate of the TNA in Maanippaay constituency in Jaffna, came under attack by an alleged SLA operated squad. Earlier, similar acts of intimidation were reported in Cha'ndilippaay in Jaffna. In the meantime, the residences of various TNA candidates have been stoned in Thenmaraardchi.
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North England Tamils protest at Sri Lanka cricket match

[TamilNet, Sunday, 10 July 2011, 07:25 GMT]
Diaspora Eezham Tamils from Manchester and Liverpool demonstrated and handed out leaflets Saturday outside the Old Trafford grounds where Sri Lanka played England in the fifth one-day-international this summer to raise awareness of Sri Lanka’s mass killings of civilians in the final months of the island’s war in 2009. The protest, organised by the leftist Tamil Solidarity (TS), was supported by British trade unions UNISON and UNITE, and local Tamil community organisations.
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Sri Lanka holds Briton over Channel 4 documentary, as Fox meets Rajapaksa

[TamilNet, Saturday, 09 July 2011, 13:48 GMT]
Sri Lanka has arrested a Briton for allegedly helping Channel 4 television produce a documentary accusing Sri Lanka’s military of mass killings of civilians in the final months of the island’s war. Kandanam Jegadishwaram was arrested on Monday and a Colombo magistrate agreed Friday police can hold Kandanam Jegadishwaram for a month, press reports said Saturday. The British High Commission in Colombo told AFP it had no immediate information on the case. The arrest comes as British Defence Secretary visited Sri Lanka and met with President Mahinda Rajapakasa.
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CPI holds demonstrations across India in support of Eezham Tamils

[TamilNet, Saturday, 09 July 2011, 13:46 GMT]
The Communist Party of India (CPI) on Friday observed an “all-India solidarity day with the Sri Lankan Tamils” and held countrywide demonstrations, highlighting the Tamils' cause and calling on India to uphold their legitimate rights and finding a speedy political solution, The Hindu newspaper reported.that demonstrations were held in 25 state capitals and other places. In New Delhi, where the local unit of Tamil Nadu’s ruling AIADMK joined the CPI protest, senior CPI leaders – general secretary A.B. Bardhan, national secretary D. Raja and deputy general secretary S. Sudhakar Reddy and Thenkaasi MP T. Lingam — participated and sought justice for the Tamils.
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Southern universities hold anti-SL government demonstration in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Saturday, 09 July 2011, 02:57 GMT]
Teachers associations of universities in the south of the island of Sri Lanka held an anti-SL government demonstration and meeting in Jaffna on Friday that was also participated by teachers of the University of Jaffna. It was an impressive demonstration and meeting held in Jaffna in recent times, news sources in Jaffna said. Their demonstration march starting from the old railway station of Jaffna went through the Hospital Road and KKS Road of the heart of the city to reach the Veerasigham Hall, where more than 500 delegates mostly from the south held a meeting. Now only we come and see for ourselves the conditions in Jaffna that despite the complete end of the war even elected parliamentarians from this place are unable to anything, the university teachers from the south said in a press meet held in Jaffna, Friday.
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External sanctions needed for change in Sri Lanka - TYO

[TamilNet, Friday, 08 July 2011, 11:55 GMT]
Welcoming Sri Lankan star cricketer Kumar Sangakkara’s assertion Monday that “cricketers [have] bigger responsibilities than merely playing on the field,” and that “the spirit of cricket can and should remain a guiding force for good within society,” the Tamil Youth Organisation said Thursday these were the very beliefs that inspired the call for an international boycott of Sri Lanka cricket until Colombo agrees to an independent investigation into mass atrocities in the final months of the war in 2009.
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Teachers forced to conduct SL military’s census hiding war deaths

[TamilNet, Thursday, 07 July 2011, 17:08 GMT]
While the Nazi-style registration of people in the north by the occupying SL military is challenged in the SL courts by Tamil politicians, the SL Army is now engaged in another way of registering people by a census it is conducting on its own, forcing Tamil school teachers and through them exploiting school students. Earlier the military tried the registration through village officers and in some instances military personnel directly conducted it. The forms now distributed by the military to teachers have no column on the cause of the death of family members and the teachers are embarrassed in facing people in taking the ‘census’. The SL Army is trying to bury facts through statistics, while it is estimated that more than 200, 000 Tamils have directly been killed in the war of 3 decades in the north alone, politicians in Jaffna allege.
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Rajiva: UN expert panel copied from Weiss’s book, Channel 4 documentary

[TamilNet, Thursday, 07 July 2011, 09:33 GMT]
Speaking on BBC’s HardTalk program Tuesday, Prof. Rajiva Wijesinghe, advisor to the Sri Lankan President on reconciliation, claimed the UN panel of experts’ report on Sri Lanka’s war crimes had “taken stuff, some of it verbatim” from former UN spokesperson Gordon Weiss’s recently published book, and from Channel 4’s recent documentary. When asked why the Sri Lankan government wasn’t agreeing to demands by the British government, US government and the EU for a thorough, independent, investigation into alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity, Prof. Wijesinghe said: “Because we are not here to keep your electorate happy.”
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Norway’s deafening silence on Sri Lanka is wrong: Aftenposten

[TamilNet, Thursday, 07 July 2011, 00:24 GMT]
Sri Lanka is in the middle of a power-game played by India, China and the USA. Norway’s interests in Sri Lanka are insignificantly few. There is no reason why Norway should maintain a deafening silence over the need for an international tribunal on the war crimes that took place in the island. The silence is due to a line of thinking in the Norwegian foreign ministry and especially in Mr Erik Solheim, that it would ‘normalise’ Norway’s relationship with Colombo. Rather than being in the driver’s seat in demonstrating how concerned Norway is about human rights, it is wrong on the part of Norway’s government to stand along the roadside with a mouth full of dust, says Kristoffer Rønneberg, a foreign affairs journalist of the prominent newspaper Aftenposten, in a commentary column published on Tuesday.
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Professor Sivathamby passes away

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 06 July 2011, 19:43 GMT]
Professor Karthigesu Sivathamy, an Eezham Tamil legend of Tamil Studies passed away on Wednesday 8:20 p.m. local time at his home in Dehiwala, Colombo. He succumbed to heart attack at the age of 79. The funeral rituals are scheduled to be held on Sunday at his residence in Colombo and the cremation will take place at Kanatta crematorium by 4:00 p.m. TamilNet joins the millions all over the world in paying tribute to the scholar who has been providing academic leadership to Tamils. He is survived by his wife Rupavathy Sivathamby and three daughters, Mangai, Kothai and Varthani.
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Legal action against Colombo for torture imminent: TAG

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 06 July 2011, 01:13 GMT]
Tamil prisoners who have managed to reach the West, by either bribing their way out, or released due to lack of evidence after being incarcerated and tortured inside Sri Lanka's Boosa, Magazine and Welikade prisons, have been providing details of torture suffered under Sri Lanka's intelligence wing of the military. Tamils Against Genocide (TAG), a US-based activist group, said Sunday that a project documenting torture and white-van abductions, supported by a list of nearly 30 affidavits, video depositions, and graphical footage of the abduction-torture sequence adopted in Colombo and in Vavuniyaa, Trincomalee internment camps, are near completion and that a Europe-based legal action is imminent.
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Civil administration becomes Sinhalese in the country of Eezham Tamils

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 05 July 2011, 06:45 GMT]
140 Sinhala Sri Lanka Administrative Service (SLAS) officers who have come initially for a ‘training’ programme to Jaffna on Monday are eventually expected to be appointed to Sinhalicise the civil service of the country of Eezham Tamils. By not recruiting Tamils and Muslims to the civil service for many years now, Colombo has schemed a situation so that only the Sinhalese could be appointed to key administrative positions even in the north and east. The process that has started in the east has now come to Vanni and Jaffna. While artfully delaying urgently needed action for the national question by reducing it into an endless debate on war crimes that has no reference to genocide, the powers that abet state in Sri Lanka commit more crimes of a permanent nature in allowing Colombo on its structural genocide and extermination of Tamil nation, political circles in Jaffna said.
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Midnight ‘resettlement’ of IDPs for Basil-show

[TamilNet, Monday, 04 July 2011, 08:38 GMT]
IDPs from Vadamaraadchi East (a former LTTE controlled region) affected by the war and were staying in the Raamaavil camp near Kodikaamam for more than two years were all of a sudden ordered to vacate the camp immediately by Saturday midnight and were herded by the occupying SL Army into military vehicles, after telling them that they would be ‘resettled’ in their villages in Vadamaraadchi East. They are at present staying in a school building in Vadamaraadchi East, without any food or facilities. They were ordered to go to their abandoned and dilapidated houses within three days and ‘live’ there. The reason for the overnight operation executed in an inhuman way was that the visiting presidential sibling Basil Rajapaksa wanted to make a show of enacting ‘resettlement’, news sources in Jaffna said.
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SLFP gang comes for campaign after militarily attacking TNA

[TamilNet, Monday, 04 July 2011, 08:37 GMT]
A gang of SLFP ministers and parliamentarians, including presidential sibling Basil Rajapaksa were camping in Jaffna last weekend to plan and campaign for the forthcoming civic elections to the town and village councils scheduled to take place in the north on 23 July. Their meetings were also participated by occupying Sri Lanka’s colonial governor Maj. Gen. Chandrasri. The SLFP campaign in Jaffna takes place after occupying SL Army brutally attacking the participants of a Tamil National Alliance election campaign meeting at A’laveddi a few days ago. After leaving democracy in the hands of a decidedly genocidal state, is there any point in some powers talking of the 13th Amendment and political solutions within one country, ask Eezham Tamil civil circles in the island.
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Tamil cricket protest draws support at Lords

[TamilNet, Monday, 04 July 2011, 05:49 GMT]
A day long protest on Sunday by scores of Tamil youth activists and supporters outside the Lord’s cricket ground where Sri Lanka played England in the third one-day-international drew support from spectators and the general public, including delegates attending the ordination of five new rabbis at the Liberal Jewish Synagogue in front of which the noisy but peaceful demonstration took place. Inside the world famous cricket ground, a youth who raced across the pitch with a Tamil Eelam flag in the middle of the match drew cheers when he dodged the grasps of pursuing stewards, and a round of applause when he was finally caught in front of the MCC pavillion.
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Sri Lanka attempts to stop ABC from airing Channel-4 video

[TamilNet, Sunday, 03 July 2011, 13:31 GMT]
Sri Lanka Government run weekly, Sunday Observer, said the current edition that Sri Lanka’s High Commission in Australia has sent a letter of protest to ABC’s Australia Broadcasting Corporation's] Four Corners Program requesting "to avoid telecasting the documentary [Channel-4's "Sri Lanka's Killing Fields"] as it is completely biased and contains unsubstantiated allegations against the Government of Sri Lanka."
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SL government manipulates IDP statistics in East: TNA MP

[TamilNet, Sunday, 03 July 2011, 12:45 GMT]
Tamil National Alliance parliamentarian from Batticaloa district, P. Selvarajah has blamed the Mahinda Rajapaksa government for false records of resettlement in the province. While many thousands people still find themselves displaced, their names are marked as resettled in the SL government records. “For example, people who displaced from Kagnchi-kudichchaa'ru and Thangka-vealaayutha-puram during the war are still living as displaced in Thampiluvil and Vinaayakapuram in Thirukkoayil in Ampaa'rai. But, their names are registered as resettled in the government list,” Mr. Selvarajah MP told media on Saturday. Rajapaksa government has also seized thousands of acres of lands in Ampaa'rai for the families of the Sinhala military personnel, he further accused.
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Why a sports boycott is essential for justice – TYO

[TamilNet, Saturday, 02 July 2011, 05:50 GMT]
With Sri Lanka defiantly rejecting international calls for war crimes investigations into the mass killings of over 40,000 Tamil civilians in 2009, Britain must go beyond rhetorical support and take concrete action to ensure justice is served, the Tamil Youth Organisation (TYO) said this week. “As a first step, Britain must support the international isolation of the Sri Lankan regime until it accepts an independent, international investigation into the mass killings,” the group said. “A boycott of Sri Lankan sport will send a clear message to Sri Lanka's regime and in particular to its many supporters at home, of the international community’s abhorrence of these atrocities and its commitment to justice.”
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Civil society groups in Karnataka meet to voice against Eezham Tamil genocide

[TamilNet, Friday, 01 July 2011, 06:13 GMT]
Forum Against War Crimes and Genocide, comprising of several civil society organisations of Karnataka state in India convene a public meeting on Saturday evening at Student Christian Movement hall in the state’s capital Bangalore to voice against “War Crimes and Genocide of Tamils in Sri Lanka.” The meeting will screen the Channel 4 documentary “Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields.” Writer, Mr. G. Ramakrishna will deliver the keynote address and will launch the state chapter of the forum. Sometimes back, people in Hubli-Dharwad, the second largest city in Karnataka too held a demonstration in support of Eezham Tamils.
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Eezham Tamil political detainees face severe mental torture

[TamilNet, Friday, 01 July 2011, 06:11 GMT]
Eezham Tamil political detainees kept in the prisons of Sri Lanka in the south as well as in the north without any cases filed against them for years are severely affected psychologically, medical sources examined them when they were brought to Jaffna teaching hospital said. Under unbearable mental stress some of the detainees attempted to escape this week, but they were re-arrested. One of them who attempted escape was swimming for a whole day to avoid detection and later he was re-arrested on information while hiding in an abandoned building.
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Eezham Tamil coastal areas intensively encroached by Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Friday, 01 July 2011, 05:34 GMT]
Occupying genocidal Sri Lanka opens up the coastal areas of Eezham Tamils for intensive ‘invasion’ of Sinhala fishermen and ‘tourism’ fat cats of the south. The latest target is the eastern coast of Mullaiththeevu and Jaffna districts as well as the islands off Jaffna, news sources from Jaffna said. While thousands of Sinhala fishermen, officially permitted by Colombo, encroach the eastern coast of the northern province to deprive local fishermen, the islands off Jaffna are encroached in the guise of tourism. A large block of prime land at Chaaddi in the Kayts Island, which earlier had the memorials of the LTTE fighters who laid down their lives for the independence of Tamils, is now claimed by John Keells, a Sinhala hotel corporate based in Colombo.
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