11 Diaspora organizations affirm Tamil sovereignty, call for referendum

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 31 July 2012, 12:50 GMT]
Ten country councils and the TYO from New Zealand convened at Oslo from 27th to 29th July, calling for a referendum among the Eezham Tamils to ascertain their political future based on the historical, earned and remedial aspects of sovereignty of the Eezham Tamil Nation. “As a nation subject to a protracted genocide, the Eelam Tamils’ dignity and freedom can be guaranteed only under a free Tamil Eelam and to ensure this, we call for the international community to recognize the creation of Tamil Eelam through an internationally monitored referendum among Eelam Tamils,” a joint release by the 11 organizations dated 29th July read. The three aspects of sovereignty of the Eezham Tamil nation were concisely discussed in the Tamil Sovereignty Cognition declaration released on Heroes’ Day, 2011.
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Australia's extradition of Tamil to US violates due process, says TAG

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 31 July 2012, 03:10 GMT]
Last week Australia's Attorney General, Nicola Roxon, has authorized the extradition to the U.S of Thulasitharan Santhirarajah, who the U.S. alleges was one of the six co-conspirators in a bungled arms-procurement operation for the Liberation Tigers in 2006. Santhirarajah has been fighting extradition to the U.S. from 2008. If Santhirarajah is extradited, he will have to stand a criminal trial in the U.S. Federal District Court of Baltimore, Maryland, and if convicted, will serve a prison term in the U.S., following which the U.S. immigration will deport the defendant to his country of residence, either to Australia or to Sri Lanka, based on the nature of Santhirarajah's residency in Australia.
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SL military steps up harassments on ex-LTTE members in Vanni

[TamilNet, Monday, 30 July 2012, 23:30 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lanka Army in Vanni has started to pressurize ex-LTTE members, who have been released from SLA imprisonment to present themselves almost on a daily basis at nearby SLA camps to their houses in Vanni, according to information reaching from several villages in Mullaiththeevu and Ki'linochchi districts. The ex LTTE members are also being harassed by the SL military intelligence officers to work for them as underground informants. Earlier, the former Tamil fighters had been instructed to register at nearby SL military camps on a monthly basis. Later, they had to register on a weekly basis, and now they are instructed to show themselves up almost every day. The latest harassments are reported from all the corners of Vanni, especially after a psy-ops military team from Colombo came to Vanni interrogating surveying and harassing the former Tamil fighters recently.
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SLA restricts access to temples, churches in Jaffna HSZ

[TamilNet, Monday, 30 July 2012, 17:26 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lanka Army in Valikaamam North has recently started to block the people from accessing temples and churches within the High Security Zone. The SLA, which had in recent years allowed the uprooted people of Vasaavi'laan to visit their temple inside the occupied ‘HSZ’ with prior permission, has now blocked them from accessing the St. Joseph Church in the village, they said. People from other villagers also complain that access to temples and churches within the HSZ has now been restricted. The SLA is also busy setting up new bunds and barbed-wire fences in recent days.
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Reject PC model in contesting elections: civil society tells TNA

[TamilNet, Sunday, 29 July 2012, 01:25 GMT]
The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) that has decided to contest the Eastern Provincial Council elections should indicate in its manifesto of its rejection of the provincial council model of the unitary system, the division of the North and East and the 13th Amendment, to tell the world of the Tamil stand on the issues and to disprove an argument that Tamils have accepted the PC model as a solution, urged prominent members of the Tamil Civil Society Movement in a written statement released on Saturday, signed by more than a 100 academics, religious leaders, student leaders, professionals, trade unionists and grassroot activists. The 13th Amendment couldn’t be accepted even as a starting point in resolving a question that needs approaches based on recognition of the nation and right to self-determination of Tamils in the island, the statement further said.
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Badurdeen's gang continues to threaten Mannaar Magistrate

[TamilNet, Saturday, 28 July 2012, 23:43 GMT]
A group of persons, allegedly operated by SL minister Rishard Badurdeen in Mannaar, attacked the house where the wife of Mannaar Magistrate Antony Judson was residing, Friday evening around 10:00 p.m. Following the attack, the lawyers association in Mannaar said it would continue the boycott, cancelling its earlier decision to abandon their boycott of court proceedings.
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Tamils in UK condemn Sri Lankan presence at Olympics opening ceremony

[TamilNet, Friday, 27 July 2012, 23:51 GMT]
Protesting against the participation of Sri Lankan sportspersons and the presence of the Sri Lankan delegation for the 2012 London Olympics, Eezham Tamils in the UK gathered in hundreds at Aspen Way, London on Friday, expressing their opposition to the legitimacy given to the Sri Lankan state that is accused of committing genocide. Sources in London, citing the British police, said that the Sri Lankan delegation did not attend the opening ceremony out of choice. However, the delegation invited by the IOC, were not compelled by the UK authorities not to attend. Speaking to TamilNet, Sasithar Maheswaran from the TCC-UK said “The British government ought to take note of the sentiments expressed repeatedly by the Tamils on the streets. An EU wide travel ban against current and previous leaders who have committed the crime of genocide against the Eezham Tamils is long overdue.”
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SL military removes Kuddimani remembrance posters, harasses former MP in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Friday, 27 July 2012, 09:38 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lanka Army (SLA) together with the SL Police on Thursday arrested former Tamil National Alliance parliamentarian and the political coordinator of the Tamil Eelam Liberation Organisation, a registered political party in the TNA alliance, for having put up posters remembering 54 Tamil political prisoners, including pioneer TELO leaders Kuddimani and Thangathurai, who were massacred inside the Welikade prison in Colombo in the SL state-sponsored pogrom against Eezham Tamils in July 1983. Mr. Sivajilingam was later released by the SL police at Nelliyadi, with the warning that he should not ‘antagonize’ the military officers of the SL military.
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130 civilians reported missing in Batticaloa under UPFA rule

[TamilNet, Thursday, 26 July 2012, 23:40 GMT]
130 civilians have been reported disappeared during the three year rule of Mr Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan as the chief minister of Eastern Provincial Council, according to Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian C. Yogeswaran.
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Paramilitary terrorizes Vaakarai, instructs people to vote for UPFA

[TamilNet, Thursday, 26 July 2012, 20:22 GMT]
Paramilitary operatives led by former chief minister of the Eastern Provincial Council (EPC) are threatening the voters in Vaakarai area of Batticaloa district that they would be driven out from the region if they vote for the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) at the forthcoming election to the EPC. The paramilitary men have instructed the people to vote for Rajapaksa's ruling United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) in which Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan would be participating as the lead candidate.
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SL Supreme Court to inquire into FR application against Champoor lands acquisition

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 25 July 2012, 23:37 GMT]
A three-member bench of the Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court on Monday decided to take up the Fundamental Rights Application filed by four Tamil-speaking farmers, a Muslim and three Tamils, against the appropriation of their traditional paddy lands in Champoor in Moothoor East in Trincomalee district, for inquiry on October 11.
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Gotabhaya schemes ‘Guantanamo Bay’ in Galle

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 25 July 2012, 21:19 GMT]
Sri Lankan Defence Secretary and SL presidential sibling Gotabhaya Rajapaksa has instructed the SL police to transfer all Tamil political prisoners from the ‘declared’ prisons in the North and East to the notorious Boosa detention camp in the Galle town of the Southern Province, informed sources in Colombo said. The instruction has been given at a meeting convened by Gotabhaya Rajapaksa on 17 July. The Tamil Prisoners of War and political prisoners are going to be further isolated from the outside world. The families of ex-Tiger members and those held under alleged association with the LTTE have expressed fear on the deteriorating security situation of their family members in the custody of the occupying Sri Lankan forces.
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LLRC witnesses forced to accept death certificates for people handed over to SLA

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 24 July 2012, 23:18 GMT]
A group of Sri Lanka Army officers from the JOSSOP camp in Vavuniyaa, which is the operational headquarters of the occupying SL military in Vanni, have been visiting Mullaiththeevu district in recent days, exerting pressure on the families of the missing persons in the district to receive death certificates for the victims. Suresh Premachandran MP of the Tamil National Alliance, who held a press conference in Jaffna on Monday, said that some of the families declare that they had personally handed over their family members at Oamanthai checkpost during the final hours of the war in 2009. “If these members were handed over to the SLA, then the SL military is answerable for their death,” Mr Premachandran said.
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Tamil politicians urge global action in releasing POWs, political prisoners

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 24 July 2012, 13:52 GMT]
Addressing a press conference in Vavuniyaa on Tuesday, the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) called for immediate release of all political prisoners who are held without any charges in the Sri Lankan prisons. Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam, representing the Tamil National Peoples Front (TNPF) said that the International Community, especially the countries that backed the internal LLRC mechanism of Colombo in the resolution passed at the UN Human Rights Council's Sessions in Geneva earlier this year, are primarily responsible for the fate of the Tamil Prisoners of War and political prisoners. Those who attended the funeral of Nimalarooban, braving the threats posed by the Sri Lankan military and intelligence operatives, told TamilNet that the victim had sustained fatal injuries on his head.
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London demonstrators urge UK, India to act through Commonwealth

[TamilNet, Monday, 23 July 2012, 23:49 GMT]
Gathering at 10 Downing Street in front of the residence of the British Prime Minister on Monday, Eezham Tamils in the UK remembered the 29th anniversary of the Black July massacre, urging for the expulsion of Sri Lanka from the Commonwealth and for Britain to boycott the CHOGM meeting scheduled to take place in the island next year. “During the 1983 pogrom, the Eezham Tamils could flee to the North as a sanctuary. Now, the extensive land grabs and militarization of the Tamil homeland has made it unsafe for them even in their home. The International Community and especially India should take responsibility for their calculated silence that has allowed this to happen,” Ravi Kumar from the British Tamils Forum (BTF) told TamilNet.
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Emerging logistics blueprint of Sri Lanka's White Van operations

[TamilNet, Monday, 23 July 2012, 01:58 GMT]
Tamils Against Genocide (TAG), a non-profit litigation and advocacy group based in the U.S., has pieced together an operational blueprint of Sri Lanka's White Van abductions, and the complicity of State Institutions. The blueprint is based on affidavits from surviving abductees, a video deposition from an ex-member of Liberation Tigers who was spared execution at the last moment, information revealed from recent capture of white van abductors in the South, and other circumstantial evidence including open death threats issued by Sri Lanka's Defense Secretary, Gotabhaya Rajapakse. TAG concludes that the white van phenomenon is not a random occurrence of isolated events, but a systemic well-organized criminal enterprise carried out by independently operating cells consisting of criminal gangs and military personnel and activated by directives from high level State officials.
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Fasting in London against genocidal Sri Lanka timed for Black July, Olympics

[TamilNet, Sunday, 22 July 2012, 22:52 GMT]
The Black July remembrance event held at London on Sunday addressed the systematic injustice that Sri Lanka had been meting out to the Tamils, with activists placing emphasis on the protracted nature of genocide Eezham Tamils face in unitary Sri Lanka. Gobi Sivanthan, a Tamil youth activist, began his hunger-strike vigil which will end on the Olympics closing ceremony on August 12 demanding, among others, the immediate halting of land grabs in the Tamil homeland. Conveying solidarity with the demands of the demonstrators, Kurdish and British activists who spoke at the event urged the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to immediately suspend Sri Lanka from the 2012 London Olympics. “States committing genocide should not be part of Olympic games,” Akif Wan, a representative from the Kurdistan National Congress (KNK) said, speaking at the event.
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SL minister Badurdeen competes with SLA on appropriating lands in Vanni amid protests

[TamilNet, Sunday, 22 July 2012, 21:59 GMT]
While more than 2,000 war-affected families are struggling without lands in Karaithu'raip-pattu division of Mullaiththeevu district, Sri Lankan minister of Trade, Rishard Badurdeen, has planned to appropriate 1,500 acres of forest land along Mu'l'liyava'lai - Nedungkea'ni Road promising the lands to his supporters from elsewhere in the island, sources at Karaithu'raippattu divisional secretariat told TamilNet. Even the occupying SLA had opposed the move, but the SL minister has exerted pressure from the top to implement his plan, the sources further said. In the meantime, protests against the SL minister, who is blamed for violent attack on the court complex in Mannaar is being stepped up by the lawyers, who have also protested against the attack on the residence of Point Pedro District Judge on Wednesday.
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Paramilitary groups threaten TNA candidates in Batticaloa district

[TamilNet, Saturday, 21 July 2012, 23:19 GMT]
Paramilitary groups operated by the occupying SL military in Batticaloa district have threatened candidates who are being fielded by the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) in the forthcoming elections to the Eastern Provincial Council. The main doors of the houses of the lead candidate in TNA list for Batticaloa district K.Thurairajasingham and another candidate Indrakumar Prasanna had been padlocked from outside by an unidentified gang on Tuesday night. Both had to complain with the SL Police in Batticaloa to break open the doors to get out.
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Genocidal land grab extended to new division in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Saturday, 21 July 2012, 22:18 GMT]
The SL state-sponsored genocidal land grab has now reached to Ea'raavoorpattu (Chengkaladi) DS division, civil sources in Batticaloa said. In recent days, Sinhala settlers have cleared several acres of forest along Magncha'l Aaru, located 5 km east of Maha Oya junction on A5 (Chengkaladi-Badulla) highway, renaming the area in Sinhala as ‘Mangalagama’. The Colombo based authorities of the SL state, which have taken over the administration of rivers, reservoirs, and ponds from the district-based irrigation authorities since 2009, are depriving the livelihood of Tamils by appropriating cultivation lands and the water sources used for inland fishing.
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SL military harasses, confiscates ICRC clearance of ex-LTTE members in Vanni

[TamilNet, Friday, 20 July 2012, 18:48 GMT]
A psy-ops squad, operated by SL Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, has started to ‘interrogate’ and harass former fighters and members of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) who have been released after the detention and so-called rehabilitation programme. Claiming that they belong to a ‘special CID unit’ from Colombo, the psy-ops squad from Colombo has been picking up former LTTE members and those who have earlier served in in the civil bodies under the LTTE administration, taking them to public places such as schools and harassing them psychologically as well as meting out physical torture on to them. Further, as part of the harassment programme, the military squad has confiscated the release papers issued to the ‘rehabilitated’ LTTE cadres by the ICRC and the International Organisation of Migration (IOM).
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SL Military intelligence alleged of attacking house of prominent Judge in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Thursday, 19 July 2012, 23:33 GMT]
Unknown attackers, believed to be Sri Lankan military intelligence operatives, on Wednesday night attacked the house of Point Pedro District Judge Ms Srinithy Nandasekaran with coconut fruit buds (kurumpaddi) that are hard as stones, causing damage to the roof of her residence. The attack comes a day after the protest in Nelliyadi against the slaying of Tamil prisoner Nimalarooban. The SL Police had sought legal ban from the District Judge to the protest in advance. But the District Court judge, after hearing the arguments of the SL police as well as that of the organisers, the Tamil National Peoples' Front (TNPF), had declined to ban the protest. Instead, she instructed the SL police to provide necessary security to the protest.
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Lawyers in North protest against SL Minister Badurdeen following violence in Mannaar

[TamilNet, Thursday, 19 July 2012, 10:25 GMT]
Lawyers and legal employees of Magistrate's Courts in North on Thursday protested against the SL Minister of Trade, Rishard Badurdeen, for inciting community violence at Koanthaippiddi jetty in Mannaar and for causing mob violence against Mannaar Court complex on Wednesday. A Muslim gang, numbering around 500 persons, incited by Mr Badurdeen's men, had threatened the Judges, lawyers inflicting damage to the court complex in the city on Wednesday. The violence was reported after the gang of SL Minister Badurdeen triggered ethnic violence against Tamil Catholic fishermen in Koanthaippiddi in Mannaar transforming a civil dispute into violence against Tamil Catholics of Joseph Vaas village. The SL Minister has been behind causing unrest between Catholics and Muslims in the district and has gone on record threatening the Bishop of Mannaar in SL Parliament, recently.
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Australian socialist calls for support to Tamils’ right to self-determination

[TamilNet, Thursday, 19 July 2012, 07:47 GMT]
“Tamils should have the right to choose whether they wish to be part of a united Sri Lanka, to break away and form an independent Tamil state in their traditional homelands in the north and east of the island, or to have some intermediate form such as federalism or autonomy,” writes Chris Slee, a member of the Melbourne branch of the Socialist Alliance, in an article published on Green Left Weekly, Sunday. Noting that the support given to Sri Lanka by world powers, especially the US, in allowing the May 2009 massacre to happen and criticizing the misunderstanding of the “progressive” Latin American countries of the Tamils’ struggle, the author calls on Australians to “demand that the Australian government support the proposal for a UN-supervised referendum. We should also demand that it end all ties with the Sri Lankan army and the other repressive forces of the Sri Lankan state.”
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Nelliyadi protest urges coherence in Tamil politics

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 18 July 2012, 16:51 GMT]
Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam, the leader of Tamil National Peoples’ Front (TNPF), addressing the peaceful protest on Wednesday at Nelliyadi, which was organised against the slaying of Nimalarooban in Sri Lanka’s prison, urged the people to see things in the context of Sri Lankan government’s systematic annihilation of the existence of Tamils as a Nation in the island. “Until we fail to establish the recognition of the Tamil nationhood and its distinct sovereignty, we will be failing in our political work,” he said. In the meantime, TNA MP S. Sritharan, addressing the protesters at Nelliyadi said Tamils are not a defeated Nation. “What has happened to our youth in 2012 in Vavuniyaa is nothing different than what had happened to our youth at Welikade prison in 1983,” he said adding that until the injustice continues, the struggle for liberation would continue.
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Nelliyadi protesters overcome sabotage by SL Military Intelligence

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 18 July 2012, 12:30 GMT]
Around 300 protesters gathered at Nelliyadi in Vadamaraadchi, Jaffna, on Wednesday, braving threats from the occupying Sri Lanka Army that warned participants about ‘firing orders’ issued to SL soldiers and Policemen. However, the demonstrators, that included solidarity groups from Upcountry and South, protesting the killing of Tamil prisoner Nimalarooban, successfully beat the sabotage attempt by the SL Military Intelligence. The SL military had dispatched four masked operatives in two motorbikes with Tamil Eelam national flags in their attempt to incite trouble at the site of the protest organised by the Tamil National Peoples Front (TNPF). The intelligence operatives had to escape from being caught by the protesters.
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Australia’s Greens senator calls for SL High Commissioner to be recalled

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 17 July 2012, 18:00 GMT]
Following reports in Australian media that Sri Lankan High Commissioner, the war crimes accused ex-Navy chief Thisara Samarasinghe had overseen efforts to stop Tamil asylum-seekers fleeing by boat to escape the massacre by the GoSL’s military in 2009, Greens Senator Lee Rhiannon has called on the Australian government to ask the Sri Lankan Government to recall its High Commissioner, or move to expel him, in a media release dated July 17. Referring to a recent ruling by the Canadian Federal Court to deport a SL Navy officer alleged of war crimes, Senator Rhiannon’s release said “This Canadian ruling should sound a large warning to the Australian government not to turn a blind eye to the High Commissioner’s role during the Sri Lankan civil war.”
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‘Crude oil attacks’ target TNPF organisers of civil protests: Gajendrakumar

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 17 July 2012, 07:42 GMT]
The house of Rajappu Edward Anandarajah, the president of All Ceylon Tamil Congress (ACTC) and the vice president of the Tamil National Peoples’ Front (TNPF), situated in Nelliyadi in Vadamaraadchi has also been attacked almost simultaneously as a squad targeted the house of Kandeepan Thangarajah, the central committee member of the TNPF in the early hours of Tuesday. Both the attacks on key members of the party in Vadamaraadchi, have come a day before the TNPF is scheduled to hold a peaceful protest at Nelliyadi on Wednesday against the recent slaying of Tamil prisoner Nimalaroopan, Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam, the leader of the TNPF, told reporters in Jaffna.
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TNPF activist subjected to ‘crude oil attack’ in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 17 July 2012, 00:27 GMT]
Unknown attackers, believed to be the operatives of the Sri Lankan military intelligence, attacked the house of Kandeepan Thangarajah, a central committee member of the Tamil National People's Front (TNPF) at Kudaththanai in Vadamaraadchi East in the early hours of Tuesday. Mr Kandeepan has been voicing against SL military-backed illegal sand mining causing destruction to his village. The attackers have used crude oil and stones, as in the cases of the recent attacks against civil society members and activists being carried out allegedly by the SL military intelligence operated squads in Jaffna.
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SLFP-men issue death threat to journalists in Mannaar

[TamilNet, Monday, 16 July 2012, 19:39 GMT]
Two newspaper reporters in Mannaar have complained to Tamil Journalists Association in Vanni that ruling SLFP-men have issued death threats to them for their reporting on inciting violence at Koanthaip-piddi jetty on Friday. An armed Muslim gang incited a section of the Muslims after Jummah Prayer to join them in causing destruction to the boats of uprooted Tamil Catholics while the dispute between communities was being already addressed by the civil officials at divisional and district level.
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Eezham Tamil youth in Germany resolve to uphold Tamil sovereignty

[TamilNet, Monday, 16 July 2012, 11:21 GMT]
Condemning the attempts by establishments to compel Eezham Tamils to accept the genocidal development model of Colombo in the Tamil homeland, second generation Eezham Tamil youth in Germany resolved “to raise awareness and educate Tamils and non-Tamils about the ongoing-internationally abetted-genocide of the Tamil nation” and to educate the IC about the legitimacy of the Tamil struggle for sovereignty at the ‘Tamil Eelam Sovereignty conference’ organized by TYO-Germany at Landau, on Sunday. Speaking to TamilNet, Vibisanan Rajasingam of the TYO said that it was important for the second generation youth in the diaspora to understand the need for a sovereign state of Tamil Eelam as the only solution to check the genocide of the Eelam Tamils, referring to the three types of sovereignty of the Eelam Tamils as mentioned in the Tamil sovereignty cognition declaration.
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SLA appropriates more lands for militarisation of Jaffna city

[TamilNet, Sunday, 15 July 2012, 12:54 GMT]
While the occupying Sri Lanka Army in the city of Jaffna claims on one hand that it is shifting the military base of 512 Division to Koappaay, more lands are being appropriated for military use in the city. The Sri Lankan colonial military governor in Jaffna, Maj Gen (retd) GA Chandrasiri has instructed the Secretary of Education of Jaffna Province, S. Sathiyaseelan to hand over the lands belonging to Sinhala MV, situated in the environs of St. Mary's School, Our Lady of Refuge (OLR) and within a residential area boxed by 4th Cross Street, Hospital Road, Veampadi Road and Martin Road, to the commander of Sri Lankan forces in Jaffna Maj Gen Mahinda Hathursinghe for the construction of a military base in the city.
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Sri Lanka's descent to dictatorship

[TamilNet, Saturday, 14 July 2012, 21:03 GMT]
"...three years after the war ended, human rights groups and opposition leaders warn that the country is descending toward dictatorship, with dissent brutally crushed, the media cowed and the minority Tamils, whose insurrection caused the war in the first place, still treated like second-class citizens," Washington Post said in the Friday edition, adding, "[a]s the scorched earth campaign entered its final stages in 2009, it cost tens of thousands of lives – a U.N. report called for an investigation into war crimes by both sides, accusing the Tigers of using civilians as human shields and the Sri Lankan military of indiscriminate shelling and denying civilians access to humanitarian aid."
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SL military grabs more lands in Maathakal

[TamilNet, Saturday, 14 July 2012, 17:48 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lankan military in Jaffna has occupied new lands in Maathakal, leaving 279 more families without homes. The latest reports say that the Sri Lankan military is silently evicting people from their homes in areas that are situated outside the former ‘High Security Zone’, civil sources in Valikaamam North said.
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SL Minister operates armed gang causing ethnic tension in Mannaar

[TamilNet, Saturday, 14 July 2012, 12:01 GMT]
A Muslim gang, carrying guns, stormed the fishing village of Koanthaip-piddi in Mannaar Town division on Friday and destroyed 23 fishing huts and two fiberglass boats with axes, causing ethnic tension between Tami Catholics and Muslims. Rishard Badurdeen, a politician from Mannaar, who has become SL minister of Industry & Commerce in Mahinda Rajapaksa’s cabinet after defecting the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC), is alleged of inciting ethnic violence in Mannaar attempting to woo Muslim voters in favour of Rajapaksa's ruling SLFP.
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Tamil, Muslim farmers in Trincomalee file writ application against land appropriation

[TamilNet, Friday, 13 July 2012, 23:29 GMT]
Two member bench of the Sri Lanka’s Court of Appeal on Wednesday fixed the inquiry for August 28 into the writ application filed by a group of Tamil and Muslim farmers against the appropriation of their fertile paddy fields for the construction of a high way by the Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) in Thampalakaamam of Trincomalee district.
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SL intelligence steps up harassment on Tamils in Colombo

[TamilNet, Thursday, 12 July 2012, 23:50 GMT]
Officers claiming to be from the Sri Lankan Defence department, but carrying ID cards issued by SL Police Department, have been visiting selected houses in Kirulappane and Dehiwale suburbs of Colombo this week demanding new registration of household members, sources in Colombo said.
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Unemployed graduates protest in Jaffna, UPFA dominates public sector employment

[TamilNet, Thursday, 12 July 2012, 18:29 GMT]
SL President Mahinda Rajapaksa's Colombo government is widely blamed for handling new and temporary appointments in the Northern province for electoral political purposes. Recent temporary appointments have been provided with the condition that the employees should extend support the UPFA government in the provincial elections, unemployed graduates demanding justice said. On Thursday, a section of unemployed graduates, who have been sidelined in such appointments, demonstrated in front of the District Secretariat in Jaffna amidst harassment from the SL military intelligence and police commandos.
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TNPF files revision application against Jaffna Magistrate for prohibiting protest

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 11 July 2012, 17:56 GMT]
Tamil National People’s Front Tuesday filed a revision application in the Jaffna High Court seeking to revoke the order of the Jaffna Magistrate, who banned the demonstration, which was scheduled to be held on June 18, against land appropriation in the district.
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Charred bodies of Tamil mother, daughter found in Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 10 July 2012, 17:39 GMT]
The charred bodies of two Tamil women have been found inside a house in Aalangkea'ni in Ki'n'niyaa DS division in Trincomalee district Tuesday morning. The bodies have been identified as 55-year-old mother Vijayarani Mahendran and her 25-year-old daughter Mahendran Janani, police sources said. The husband of the deceased Vijayarani was clubbed to death six months ago by a group of unidentified persons.
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People of Navaali remember massacre amidst SLA harassment

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 10 July 2012, 08:56 GMT]
Hundreds of Eezham Tamils on Monday gathered at Navaali St. Peters's Church in Jaffna in memory of 147 civilians, who were brutally slain in a genocidal massacre 17 years ago by the Sri Lankan military that had instructed the fleeing people from a military operation to seek security at the Church and the nearby Saiva temple. The Sri Lankan Air Force (SLAF) on 09 July 1995 dropped leaflets from its helicopters instructing the civilians who were fleeing from a Sri Lanka Army (SLA) operation, to seek security at the Church.
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SL Navy steps up harassment on Tamil fishermen in Jaffna, Vanni

[TamilNet, Monday, 09 July 2012, 01:04 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lanka Navy have been refusing fishermen in Vadamaraadchi to search for their missing fishermen for 72 hours since their two fishermen had sent SOS signals after their boat damaged in the seas and lost its direction. The missing fishermen were finally brought home after fellow fishermen, who went to search for them hiding from the prying eyes of the SL Navy managed to reach them in their boats. The SL navy had refused to allow the fishermen cross the border and had refused to offer any help to rescue the fishermen. Finally, Tamil Nadu fishermen had rescued them till the fishermen from Jaffna managed to reach them, fisheries society representatives in Vadamaraadchi said complaining increased harassments by the SL Navy in the seas off Jaffna and Vanni.
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Tamil reported missing found in coma after Vavuniyaa prison raid

[TamilNet, Sunday, 08 July 2012, 23:37 GMT]
28-year-old Tamil man, Dilrukshan Muthurasa from Iluppaikkadavai, in Maanthai West of Mannaar district in Vanni, was one of the prisoners in Vavuniyaa prison, which was raided by the Sri Lankan Special Task Force commandos on 29 June. Dilrukshan, seriously attacked and allegedly subjected to torture at Vavuniyaa and Anuradhapura prisons, is currently in coma and is fighting for his life at Mahara prison. His mother, Reeza Muthurasa, who didn't know about the whereabouts of her son, has identified him after visiting her son at Mahara hospital, following press reports. According to Ms Reeza, her son, who had gone on employment in Middle East in 2006 had returned just before the war intensified in Vanni and was caught by the SL Navy when he tried to escape the war zone in a boat in 2009.
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New refugee vessels head for Australia from Jaffna, Vanni

[TamilNet, Sunday, 08 July 2012, 20:05 GMT]
Agents involved in human trafficking, backed by influential ministers and personalities of the Rajapaksa government in Colombo, are exploiting the plight of already victimized Tamil youth in the North and East, to brave the Indian Ocean, making a 15-day journey towards Australia in search of a safe life than the genocide designed for them in the island, informed sources in Vadamaraadchi told TamilNet Sunday. A deep-sea fishing vessel has left Inparuddi of Vadamaraadchi, four days ago, carrying at least 15 Tamil youth. Another 20 members have been recruited and the next group is expected to leave the coast of Jaffna or Mullaiththeevu in a couple of days, the sources further said.
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Colombo's new highways scheme genocidal demographic change in Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Saturday, 07 July 2012, 21:17 GMT]
The Colombo government has been appropriating lands belonging to civilian population under the guise of implementing several highway road development projects in the Trincomalee district with a genocidal agenda, say Tamil civil officials in the district. While many of the roads within the district, especially in Tamil areas, are not cared for in the so-called ‘reconstruction’ and ‘development’ by the regime in Colombo, new roads such as the one that links Sinhala dominated Seruvila in the district with Soamaavathi village in Polonnaruwa district through Maavil Aa'ru, have mushroomed with Buddhist viharas with highly developed infrastructure for Sinhala settlements, after 2009.
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SL military has grabbed 5,210 acres of land in Mannaar, say protestors

[TamilNet, Saturday, 07 July 2012, 17:34 GMT]
Providing details of private and public lands being appropriated by the SL military in Mannaar district, Tamil activists, who came together for a protest on Saturday said, the militarisation seriously affects the lives of people of Mannaar. Tamil civilians, who are denied resettlement in Channaar in Maanthai West, where the occupying Sri Lankan military has appropriated 3,500 acres of lands, were the majority of the participants in the protest. Mannaar Bishop Rt. Rev. Dr. Rayappu Joseph, together with Catholic priests and other civil activists from Mannaar, took part in the protest, which was organised by the youth activists of Ilangkai Thamizh Arasuk Kadchi (ITAK). The protest was supported by the other parties in the TNA, the parties outside the alliance, and by the elected representatives of the civic bodies in Mannaar as well as the Democratic People Front from South.
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Washington Post journalist confirms state of emergency in Tamil homeland

[TamilNet, Friday, 06 July 2012, 19:46 GMT]
Referring to the all pervasive rule of the Sinhala military in the country of Eezham Tamils, Simon Denyer of Washington Post reports from Jaffna that “[t]he military has even inserted itself into almost every aspect of economic life in the north of the country, farming and selling vegetables, running hotels, restaurants and even barber shops” in a feature published Friday. Alluding to sources from the ground, the report gives a picture of how the military runs a state of emergency in the Tamil homeland, with land grabs, routine harassment, curtailment of the right to assembly and even forcible interventions in public functions.
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SLA soldiers alleged of killing father of three in Thenmaraadchi

[TamilNet, Thursday, 05 July 2012, 15:34 GMT]
Occupying Sinhala soldiers of the Sri Lanka Army, on Wednesday, allegedly beat a recently resettled 47-year-old man, Kandiah Jeyarajah, near A9 highway at Ezhuthumadduvaa'l in Thenmaraadchi, Jaffna. The victim succumbed to his injuries while being rushed to Chaavakachcheari hospital, residents in Ezhuthumadduvaazh village told TamilNet Thursday. The wife of the slain victim also confirmed the allegation that the SLA soldiers were involved in the slaying of her husband, who had got into a quarrel with his brother. The SLA soldiers, stationed at the junction had intervened in the private quarrel and when Mr Jeyarajah began to resist, he was severely beaten by the soldiers.
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Canada should have prosecuted officer of war-crimes complicit SL Navy: TAG

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 04 July 2012, 13:41 GMT]
In what can turn out to be a move of political significance, one of Sri Lankan Navy’s top officer’s refugee claim has been rejected by federal officials in Canada, owing to a finding by the Canadian Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) that the officer, Nadarajah Kuruparan, had been complicit in crimes against humanity and that there was systematic human rights abuses committed against the Tamils in the island by institutions he served in. However, referring to the salient points of this outcome, Rajeev Sreetharan from TAG told TamilNet “Deporting, as opposed to prosecuting Nadarajah Kuruparan for his direct participation in coordinated maritime armed attacks and logistical support to the Sri Lankan Armed Forces' genocidal siege of the Tamil civilian population cornered in Mu'l'livaaykkaal, is incompatible with letter and spirit of what the Geneva Conventions compel.”
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Demonstrating UK Tamils expose India’s defiance of international refugee conventions

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 04 July 2012, 00:31 GMT]
Demonstrating outside the Indian High Commission at India Place, London, Tamils in the UK demanded the immediate release of the detained inmates of the Chengalpet (Chengkal-paddu) ‘special camp’ and for the closure of that facility. Separate petitions submitted by TCC-UK to the UNHCR and the Indian High Commission called for a revision in the Indian approach to Eezham Tamil refugees in India. “Right now our priority is to shut down these special camps. Apart from that we can't expect much from India but we need the various agencies of the UN to communicate with each other to clarify that the isolated incidents witnessed by each when seen together is actually facilitating the genocide of the Eezham Tamil nation,” Sivatharshan Sivakumaravel, an activist from TCC-UK told TamilNet.
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Paramilitary compromises activities of Zonal Education office in Kalkudaa

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 03 July 2012, 18:46 GMT]
The Kalkudaa Zonal Education Office in Batticaloa district is functioning under the direct control of a paramilitary group, teachers and heads of schools complain. As a result of the paramilitary threat, the education of children has been hampered. Kalkudaa education zone was at 9th rank at provincial and island level in 2007. But the rank has now gone down to 16th place, the teachers say. In the meantime, officials of the education sector report misappropriation of funds by the paramilitary.
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Militarisation stepped up along coast of Ampaa'rai

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 03 July 2012, 17:28 GMT]
The Sri Lanka Navy, which didn't have a camp even during the height of the war at the coastal village of Paanama, situated in the southernmost Lahugala division of the Ampaa'rai district, is now at full swing constructing a large naval base at an area of 800 acres of lands, which it had appropriated from both the Tamils and the Sinhalese. The SL military is appropriating more lands in the division to be handed over to politically influential personalities, alleges Rasiah Chandrasena, the chairman of Lahugala Divisional Council (Piratheasa Chapai).
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Occupying Sri Lanka Army assaults Saiva priest in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 03 July 2012, 07:57 GMT]
The Tamil priest of Aathi Paraasakthi temple in Valveddith-thu'rai was brutally assaulted by the occupying Sri Lanka military on Monday, a few minutes after the priest politely reminded a Sinhala soldier, who went inside the temple wearing boots, that the act was considered as showing disrespect to the deity and as desecrating the shrine. The priest, brutally attacked by the military, was rushed to Valveddith-thu'rai hospital by the devotees of the temple at E'l'lang-ku'lam. Tension prevailed in the area following the offending act of the SL military, residents of the village said.
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Right to free assembly worsens further in Vanni

[TamilNet, Monday, 02 July 2012, 16:48 GMT]
The occupying SL military-run ‘civil’ administration of the Northern province, led by Colombo's colonial governor of North Maj. Gen. (retd) GA Chandrasir, has instructed the educational sector officials in Vanni about whom they should invite as guests to events and meetings of the schools. Those who could be invited are military officers, SL ministers, state officials and the politicians or operatives of the ruling UPFA alliance or the paramilitary outfits such as the EPDP. Those banned from the stages are elected parliamentarians of the TNA and representatives of civic bodies. The SL military has almost imposed an undeclared emergency in Vanni, prohibiting people from getting together for meetings without prior permission from the military.
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Belgian left group expresses solidarity with Eezham Tamils’ struggle

[TamilNet, Monday, 02 July 2012, 09:21 GMT]
Activists belonging to Links Socialistische Partij (LSP), a leftist political organization in Belgium and civil society activists expressed their solidarity with the struggle of the Eezham Tamils at a public meeting on Tamil culture and history held at Steenokkerzee, a municipality in the Flemish Brabant province, on Saturday. Speaking at the meeting, Geert Gool, Antwerpen member of the LSP said systematic injustices have been committed on the Eezham Tamils and urged the Government of Belgium to change its stance on Tamils struggle. The Mayor of Steenokkerzee, Karen Servranckx, was also present at the event.
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Activists demonstrating at Chengalpet detained by police

[TamilNet, Sunday, 01 July 2012, 07:11 GMT]
Over 200 activists from different Tamil Nadu political parties and civil society outfits, who had gathered at Chengalpet to protest the detention and harsh treatment of Eezham Tamil refugees in the ‘special camp’ there were arrested by the police on Saturday. Pressuring the police to release the protestors, 4 of the camp inmates climbed on trees and threatened to jump. After a brief parley, the detained activists were released by evening. Meanwhile, the condition of those hunger strikers who have been hospitalized has been further deteriorating, sources told TamilNet.
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