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[TamilNet, Tuesday, 31 December 2013, 20:51 GMT]
Canadian Eezham Tamil parliamentarian Rathika Sitsabaiesan representing Sacarborough-Rouge River constituency, who was on a visit to the island has come under the harassment of the occupying Sri Lankan military and police establishment in Jaffna on Tuesday evening. SL ‘Terrorist Investigation Department’ Officer-in-Charge in Jaffna Ranaweera accompanied by two TID female officers, who were waiting at a hotel in Jaffna, where Ms Rathika Sitsabaiesan was staying, have placed the visiting Canadian parliamentarian under an ‘unofficial’ house-arrest after she entered the hotel around 7:00 p.m., concluding a visit to the uprooted people of Valikaamam North and Vadamaraadchi with the chairman of Valikaamam North Piratheasa Chapai (PS) Mr S. Sugirthan.
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[TamilNet, Tuesday, 31 December 2013, 15:25 GMT]
A sailor of the occupying Sinhala Navy from a camp in Thiriyaay, a Tamil village in the north of Trincomalee district, was arrested on Sunday by the Kuchchave'li Police as the villagers demanded immediate action from the commanders of the occupying military and police in Thiriyaay. The SLN sailor, identified as one Priyantha Dissanayake, was produced in Trincomalee magistrate court on Monday before the acting magistrate who ordered the suspect to be remanded till January 6, 2014.
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[TamilNet, Monday, 30 December 2013, 17:14 GMT]
95% of the 1080 families of Batticaloa Tamils who survived the 2009 genocidal onslaught in Vanni and resettled back in Batticaloa district have been completely neglected from any help and still languish without basic facilities. When the families displaced from Batticaloa to Vanni in 2004 from different places of the district, Karuna group paramilitary destroyed their houses and their possessions were robbed. When they returned to their district, surviving the genocidal onslaught, Europe-based NGOs and UN agencies provided temporary huts to these families. All support stopped there, and these huts became the ‘markers’ for these families to get isolated from further aid, the families complain. They have also been sidelined from the Indian housing assistance.
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[TamilNet, Monday, 30 December 2013, 08:42 GMT]
Occupying Colombo's police officials in Mannaar have said that the skeletons recovered at the mass grave at Thirukkeatheesvaram were being dispatched to China for forensic examinations. Responding, legal sources in Mannaar asked the motive of Colombo using China for DNA testing of the skeletons discovered at the mass grave and questioned the fate of similar cases earlier sent to China for ‘forensic examinations’. In 2009, China had allegedly provided Colombo with ‘movable crematory vehicles’ to get rid of the dead bodies of the genocidal victims in Vanni. Tamil activists urged the alternative world to assist the nation of Eezham Tamils to undertake forensic examinations in future in a credible and independent manner.
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[TamilNet, Sunday, 29 December 2013, 21:34 GMT]
In one of the strongest investigations and monitoring conducted so far on a foreign journalist visiting the island, the experienced interrogators of the notorious ‘Terrorist Investigation Department’ of Colombo had not only confiscated the electronic and non-electronic possessions from the young journalist from Tamil Nadu, but also monitored and traced all his contacts from the moment he landed at Colombo airport for the second time, informed media sources in Colombo told TamilNet Sunday. In the meantime 22-year-old Maga Thamizh Prabhagaran, when contacted by TamilNet after his deportation to Chennai, said he was subjected to ‘psychological torture’ like condition at the hands of the TID interrogators in Colombo and that the TID had his Tamil book of his first visit translated when they questioned him on his affiliations.
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[TamilNet, Saturday, 28 December 2013, 22:30 GMT]
Hundreds of Tamil residents, who were uprooted from Vanni in the 2009 genocidal onslaught and resettled in Batticaloa district now, have not been provided permanent houses under the Indian housing project, according to complaints made to the Batticaloa District Citizen Committee.
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[TamilNet, Saturday, 28 December 2013, 12:40 GMT]
Colombo government’s Department of Wildlife Conservation (DWC), deploying Sinhala settlers from Ampaa’rai district and paramilitary known as Home Guards, has put up a fence covering 800 acres of Tamil villages of Batticaloa district. The land appropriation is taking place under the guise of constructing a fence to prevent wild elephants from entering Batticaloa district from the jungles of Ampaa’rai district, according to Tamil National Alliance (TNA) councillor of the Eastern Provincial Council.
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[TamilNet, Friday, 27 December 2013, 20:18 GMT]
Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), a New York based media rights group, on Friday called for the immediate release of an Indian journalist and film-maker, Maga Thamizh Prabhagaran who was arrested by the occupying Sri Lankan military and Police in Vanni on Wednesday.
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[TamilNet, Friday, 27 December 2013, 13:19 GMT]
The journalist from Tamil Nadu, Maga Thamizh Prabhagaran, who was arrested by the occupying SL military and police in Vanni, while he was visiting Ki’linochchi was still under the custody of the ‘Terrorist Investigation Department’ as late as Thursday night, informed sources in Colombo said. Earlier, the SL police spokesman in Colombo had stated that the Mr Thamizh Prabhagaran was being handed over to the immigration authorities for deportation. But, Colombo's TID officers were interrogating the Indian journalist on his contact network in the island by going through his article series that has appeared in Junior Vikatan, the sources further said.
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[TamilNet, Thursday, 26 December 2013, 11:49 GMT]
Four masked men carrying handguns have abducted 22-year-old son of the leading fisheries society activist Kanthavanam Sooriyakumaran in the early hours of Thursday at Inparuddi, Point-Pedro, in Jaffna district, according to the relatives of the victim, Thamilamuthan Sooriyakumaran. The abduction took place while Mr Thamilamuthan was alone at his sister’s home, as the family had gone to Vadamaraadchi East to take part in the memorial event held for their children and others who had perished in 2004 tsunami tragedy. Mr Thamilamuthan has already complained to his family and friends that Sri Lankan military intelligence operatives were closely following him during the past few days. His father, Mr Kanthavanam, is the president of the Federation of fisheries societies in the Northern Province.
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[TamilNet, Thursday, 26 December 2013, 01:48 GMT]
A young journalist from Tamil Nadu, Maga Thamizh Prabhagaran, who was touring in the North was arrested by the occupying Sri Lankan military and the SL police Wednesday noon, while he was talking to the parish priest of St. Antony’s Church in Ponnaavea’li, news sources in Vanni said. The Indian journalist visiting the island on tourist visa was together with Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian S. Sritharan, Northern Provincial Council (NPC) member S. Pasupathipillai and Karaichchi Piratheasa Chapai (PS) member S. Thayaparan during the detention, interrogation and arrest, the news sources further said.
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[TamilNet, Wednesday, 25 December 2013, 00:54 GMT]
While one may expect that the word "sex" may emerge as a heavily searched word in Google, what is surprising is that Sri Lanka has created a world record for topping the list of the countries with the most number of searches for this "word" viewed by philosopher Freud as the most important in the dynamics of the psyche of humankind. Sri Lanka has excelled in demonstrating this Freudian motive even while the Rajapakse family had over two years ago banned most such web sites about sex, preventing Sri Lankans in logging into those sites. This singular achievement may also point to the inner workings of the perverted cultural mind of the Sri Lanka military which has been blamed, and enjoys immunity from criminality, for several gang rapes with bestial brutality on Tamil fighting women during the war, and Tamil civilians after the end of the war in Sri Lanka.
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[TamilNet, Tuesday, 24 December 2013, 21:12 GMT]
In a blatant exhibition of skullduggery and political nepotism, Secretary General of the United Nations (UNSG), Ban Ki Moon, Monday, has approved the appointment to a diplomatic position, a New York-based Indian diplomat, accused of visa fraud, thereby affording her diplomatic immunity from alleged criminal conduct. Earlier, U.N. raised no opposition to UN appointments of Sri Lanka's alleged war criminals, ex-military General Shavendra Silva, under whose command Tamil civilians were massacred, and Palitha Kohona, who has a complaint pending in the International Criminal Court over his complicity the killing of surrendees in the Sri Lanka war. Political observers say U.N. has become a safe haven for friendly states to provide diplomatic protection from past crimes and to whitewash alleged criminal conduct.
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[TamilNet, Tuesday, 24 December 2013, 20:23 GMT]
Medical experts from Colombo must be present in order to further excavate the recently located mass grave in Mannaar, Sri Lankan police officials said as the work was suddenly stopped on Monday after 11 full human skeletons were recovered from the site at Thirukkeatheesvaram. Northern Provincial Council minister of fisheries Mr Deinswaran, who witnessed the excavation, said the bones bore marks of torture. Local residents said that there were signs that more skeletons were buried under the road, running parallel to the excavated pit. The second largest camp of the occupying Sri Lanka Army in Mannaar was located at the locality from 1993.
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[TamilNet, Monday, 23 December 2013, 19:45 GMT]
"Based upon my first-hand personal experiences working with the Palestinians at their peace negotiations and the Bosnians at their peace negotiations, the Tamils cannot trust the United States, the United Kingdom, the United Nations, the European Union and its Member States to do the right thing for them. The Tamils can only trust in themselves,” responded Professor Francis Boyle on Monday, when TamilNet asked him what would be his advice to the Tamil diaspora in engaging with the ‘International Community’. TamilNet posed the question to Professor Boyle following his recent interview on Bosnian ‘peace’ negotiations to the Institute for Research of Genocide, Canada.
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[TamilNet, Monday, 23 December 2013, 10:20 GMT]
The Sri Lankan Police Inspector, who is in charge of the Trincomalee Police Station had threatened the head of the committee of missing persons, Mr Sundaram Mahendran, when he went there to make a complaint on the attack on him and the protesters on the Human Rights Day. A squad of masked men, allegedly operated by the intelligence wing of the occupying SL military, attacked the peaceful protest organized on December 10 as the SL police was watching the Sinhala squad’s assault on the demonstrators. Mr Sundaram was wounded in the attack and admitted to the hospital.
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[TamilNet, Sunday, 22 December 2013, 18:08 GMT]
While in the western liberal democracies advanced DNA-based evidence collection has been the staple of modern crime investigations since the advent of DNA testing in 1985, in Sri Lanka DNA testing on Tamil victims have been systematically blocked by Colombo likely as part of the politically sanctioned strategy and forced on the subservient judicial branch to suppress evidence of Sinhala military criminality. While the blocking of Maanthai skeletal findings is the latest in Colombo's involvement in suppressing possible military complicity, the results of the DNA testing of the body of the popular Catholic priest Rev. Fr. Jim Brown, whose mutilated torso was found at Pungkudutheevu sea on 14 March 2007, was also suppressed by Colombo. Colombo media, under direct and indirect threat from Rajapaksas, self-censored the coverage of the Brown story in 2007.
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[TamilNet, Sunday, 22 December 2013, 17:29 GMT]
A new site of a mass grave was located this week in Mannaar, 75 meters from Maanthai junction towards Thirukkeatheesvaram, in an area that has been under the control of the occupying Sri Lanka Army since 1990 to the end of Vanni war. Such discoveries, which get highlighted as news stories, do not get proper investigative follow-up by the media, complain legal activists in Jaffna. Observing the pattern of systematic sabotage by the Colombo-centric Sri Lankan justice system on similar discoveries of mass graves in North in the past, Tamil lawyers say all requests for forensic examinations forwarded to Colombo by the SL courts in North and East get blocked in Colombo.
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[TamilNet, Saturday, 21 December 2013, 21:35 GMT]
India's “insensitive policy” and “overt act of defence cooperation with Sri Lanka”, which totally ignores the impact it may have upon not just the sentiments of the people of Tamil Nadu, but the direct effect on the right to livelihood of the Tamil Nadu fishermen, said Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu Ms J Jayalalithaa in a strongly worded letter to Indian Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh on Saturday. Indian Coast Guard is allowed to participate in a marine defence exercise and has deputed ships, officers and men to Trincomalee, to participate in an exercise, despite repeated calls from Tamil Nadu to issue a clear policy direction that the Ministry of Defence should not provide training, or engage in any form of co-operation with the Sri Lankan Armed Forces that were responsible for rights violations against “Tamil minority” in the island Ms Jayalalithaa said.
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[TamilNet, Saturday, 21 December 2013, 12:21 GMT]
A Tamil student from Aaraip-pattai (Aaraiyampathi) in Ma’nmunaip-pattu division of Batticaloa district was rushed to the hospital in serious condition on Saturday, when he attempted to commit suicide by self-poisoning just a few hours before he was supposed to travel to the notorious Minneriya camp of the occupying SL military to attend an enforced indoctrination programme for all new students in order to become eligible for university entrance. The SL military is conducting a genocidal subordination in addition to the psychological pressure. There are students who lost their hard earned university admission as they were not able to secure the money needed to spend on meeting the demands of the military indoctrination programme, under the so-called ‘leadership’ indoctrination, the students from East say.
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[TamilNet, Friday, 20 December 2013, 16:45 GMT]
234 health volunteers, who have been serving the Jaffna Teaching Hospital for more than 5 years, have been agitating for the past 8 days in front of the hospital demanding permanent employment as the occupying Colombo government has created a new ‘development’ outfit named ‘Jaffna Hospital Development Society’, which has been attempting to fill the vacancies of porters and other assisting employees with persons favoured by EPDP paramilitary. On Thursday, when the volunteers decided to step up their agitation into fast-unto-death campaign the SL ‘Military’ Governor in North, Maj Gen (retd) GA Chandrasiri has threatened the volunteers to give up their strike, medical sources in Jaffna said.
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[TamilNet, Friday, 20 December 2013, 16:12 GMT]
More than 100 civil activists from all walks of life, including religious dignitaries, human rights activists, journalists, writers and academics, both from within and outside the island, have strongly condemned the Government of Sri Lanka for the continuous detention of 7 Tamil youth under the so-called Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) since their arrest during the last week of November following the Tamil Heroes Day observations in Jaffna and Mannaar. The aactivists said that they were concerned as the arrests were unfounded and only served to perpetuate the climate of fear and insecurity of the people of the North.
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[TamilNet, Thursday, 19 December 2013, 07:53 GMT]
Almost all the buildings that were situated in the 6,400 acres of lands seized by the occupying Sri Lankan military in Valikaamam North in Jaffna have been completely bulldozed by the SL military, according to those who have witnessed the destruction in recent days. The entire area of fertile cultivation and residential lands now looks like single piece of desert land, they said. Except the buildings used by the genocidal military at the ‘forward line’ and the building at the rear, close to the Palaali military base, everything else has been razed to the ground. The SL military is transforming the former High Security Zone into a Sinhala Military Zone to encapsulate the Palaali military complex in Jaffna with a Sinhala military colony of the occupying soldiers from South.
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[TamilNet, Tuesday, 17 December 2013, 16:53 GMT]
Following the instruction from occupying Colombo's Defence Secretary and Sri Lankan Presidential sibling Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, a number of 'Terrorist Investigation Department' (TID) cells have started to function inside the Sri Lankan Police stations in the North in recent days. SL intelligence operatives claiming as TID investigators are engaged in muzzling the civilians, relatives of the victims demanding justice, social media activists and journalists. Those who interacted with the US Embassy delegation that visited Jaffna recently, were being invited for interrogations over the phone, news sources in Jaffna said.
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[TamilNet, Monday, 16 December 2013, 23:40 GMT]
The Sri Lankan government is stepping up the deployment of the notorious Special Task Force (STF) commandos in all the districts in the Northern and Eastern provinces, according to latest reports in Colombo media. In August, when UN Human Rights High Commissioner Ms Navi Pillay visited the North and East, the Sri Lankan government announced that it was ‘separating’ the administration of SL Police department from the Defence Ministry and that the police was now coming under the ministry of ‘Law and Order’ according to a recommendation of Rajapaksa’s Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC). The STF, trained by the British, is a full-fledged military outfit under the SL Police, which was directly engaged in acts of genocide in the East as well as in Vanni during the war.
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[TamilNet, Sunday, 15 December 2013, 23:12 GMT]
Colombo has schemed a sinister move to demographically annex Thennai-maravadi, a strategic ancient Tamil village in Kuchchave’li division on the border of Northern and Eastern Provinces with the Sinhala dominated Padavi Sripura division of Trincomalee district, civil sources in Trincomalee told TamilNet. By annexing Thennai-maravadi to Padavi-Sripura, all the administrative affairs of the village would be taken over by the Sinhala officials. This will make it easier for Colombo to carry out the Sinhalicisation of the entire area, Tamil officials in Kuchchave’li Divisional Secretariat said. The lands belonging to Tamils will be seized and handed over to Sinhalese settlers with the aim of permanently wedging the demographic contiguity of the northern and eastern provinces.
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[TamilNet, Saturday, 14 December 2013, 23:48 GMT]
The Congressional Caucus on Ethnic and Religious Freedom in Sri Lanka, initiated by Congressmen Bill Johnson (R-OH) and Danny Davis (D-IL) aims to bring the attention of the American public to the Tamils in Sri Lanka and their plight, Washington Times reported in its Thursday edition. In a joint press release, Congressmen Johnson and Davis said, “Given the magnitude of horrors Sri Lankans bore witness to, and how the most egregious alleged violators of international law remain unpunished, accountability for the guilty is essential for helping those who have suffered to heal, and the country’s diverse population reconcile.”
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[TamilNet, Saturday, 14 December 2013, 17:55 GMT]
Facebook provided a much needed moral boost to Kosovars as it granted legitimacy last month in the digital world by approving a number of changes, including giving users registering from the diamond-shaped area on the Balkan Peninsula the option to identify themselves as citizens of Kosovo, rather than the decidedly less attractive option for many there, Serbia. Kosavars call the changes important while they seek recognition from the United Nations, which confers legitimacy, and the European Union, whose members are divided on the question, ever since Kosovo proclaimed a separate state five years ago. Jubilant Kosavars say the Facebook's recognition is important as a matter of identity and economics. Kosovar businesses have been included on Facebook’s powerful advertising engine, helping companies target Kosovo’s small but growing consumer market.
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[TamilNet, Friday, 13 December 2013, 23:51 GMT]
At least 147 Tamil Nadu fishermen, who lost their bearing in the rough seas due to stormy weather and reached the shores of the country of Eezam Tamils, have been arrested by the occupying Sri Lanka Navy in the seas off Jaffna and Mullaiththeevu during the past 3 days. In the meantime, two bodies have washed ashore in Maathakal in recent days are yet to identified.
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[TamilNet, Friday, 13 December 2013, 23:01 GMT]
While the elected members of the Northern Provincial Council (NPC) on Thursday passed the inaugural budget of the NPC after 3 days of sittings at their secretariat in Kaithadi, Colombo's military governor of North, Major General (retd) G.A. Chandrasiri on Friday hastily summoned the officials and secretaries of various ministries to a conference at Koappaay College of Education and told the officials that the budget was not valid until he approved particular sections of the budget. The TNA was not abiding by the Sri Lankan Constitution in preparing the budget, he has told the officials.
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[TamilNet, Thursday, 12 December 2013, 12:05 GMT]
Attempting to incite community hatred between various Tamil-speaking communities of Naanaaddaan, Rishard Badurdeen, the Industry and Commerce Minister of the occupying Sri Lanka, has again interfered in the civic affairs, sabotaging the efforts by the Bishop of Mannaar to resolve a land dispute in Pon-theevu-ka’ndal village, news sources in Mannaar said. The SL minister has played a crucial role in creating a conflict between the residents of the Muslim village of Poovarasang-ku’lam and Pon-theevu-ka’ndal where non-Muslim Tamils live. The SL Police and government officials are under the control of the controversial minister, who has been behind causing unrest between Catholics and Muslims in the district.
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[TamilNet, Thursday, 12 December 2013, 04:11 GMT]
United Nation's Special Advisor on Prevention of Genocide to the Secretary General (SG), Adama Dieng, said during a UN panel discussion Wednesday that not only the United Nations but all member states failed the people of Sri Lanka. He implied that while the SG did not make use of Article 99 which bestows power on the SG to refer to the Security Council situations that threatened international security, the SG set up panels to identify witnesses and has now set up the "Rights Up Front plan," which might have prevented the situation [killings] in Sri Lanka. Meanwhile, Amady Ba, the Deputy Prosecutor to the International Criminal Court, referring to the killings, said that the ICC has no jurisdiction over countries that are not party to the Rome Statute.
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[TamilNet, Wednesday, 11 December 2013, 23:08 GMT]
The Immigration and Asylum Chamber of UK's Upper Tribunal, during hearings of an appeal by a Sri Lankan ex-Police officer who sought asylum in the UK claiming imminent threat of persecution, refused asylum to the appellant on the grounds that there was plausible evidence that the officer knowingly participated in war-crimes, and therefore, is excluded from the protections of the Refugee Convention. The Police officer, named "Mr. AS" in the proceedings to preserve anonymity, and believed to be a Sinhala officer, told the courts that he and 11 other members of a special unit of the police took part in white-van abductions of Tamils suspected of having links with the LTTE, and that his unit operated from abandoned buildings and received direct orders from Deputy Inspector General (DIG), a high level Police authority.
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[TamilNet, Wednesday, 11 December 2013, 17:16 GMT]
The masked men, who on Tuesday attacked a peaceful demonstration, which was staged by the relatives of missing persons in Trincomalee, belong to a squad operated by the intelligence wing of the occupying SL military, the organisers of the protest said on Wednesday. The members of the squad arrived through the Sinhala market, parked their motorbikes and launched the attack after covering their faces with clothes. More than one hundred peaceful demonstrators, most of them women, carrying the photos of their missing kith and kin, were brutally attacked by the men, who also destroyed the photos and placards on Human Rights Day in the city of Trincomalee while SL Policemen were watching the unfolding violent episode.
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[TamilNet, Tuesday, 10 December 2013, 11:08 GMT]
After an assessment of evidences presented by eyewitnesses and experts, judges of the Permanent People’s Tribunal reached unanimous consensus that the Sri Lankan state was guilty of crimes of genocide against the Eezham Tamils and that the genocide is continuing even after the end of the military operations against the LTTE. Concluding the four day session with a press conference at Bremen on Tuesday, the judges also noted that the Sri Lankan military did not have capacity to commit genocide on its own and that it was supported by the UK-USA-India axis. While the judges held the USA and the UK to be complicit in the genocidal process, they were of the opinion that more evidence was needed as regards India’s role.
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[TamilNet, Tuesday, 10 December 2013, 07:41 GMT]
The panel of judges who heard the charges of genocide against the Eezham Tamil people would be announcing their findings of the Bremen Tribunal in a live streaming press conference which starts at 10:00 a.m. on Tuesday. Journalists can email in questions which will be answered by the panel then and there, the organisors said. The e-mail address, to which the questions should be sent, will appear on the live streaming screen online. Eleven direct eyewitnesses and experts testified in support of the Prosecution’s case, providing evidence on various alleged crimes that could be determined to constitute the crime of Genocide, as well as on the legal and historical background. Press here for streaming video of the press conference
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[TamilNet, Sunday, 08 December 2013, 17:54 GMT]
Establishing a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) modeled on the South Africa (SA) experience, viewed by Sri Lanka backers as an urgent need to mitigate possible strong actions by the International Community against Sri Lanka over its rights violations, appears as an imminent outcome from the recently concluded Commonwealth Meeting [CHOGM]. But a Sri Lanka journalist who is a visiting Australian National University fellow, says whereas in the post-apartheid South Africa context and under the leadership of Mandela, TRC was made to work in SA, in Sri Lanka proposing a TRC without defining what it means, makes the effort appear only as "another procrastinating tactic." The scholar cautions, in Sri Lanka, no credible investigations into rights violations are likely to happen, and the consequences for Sri Lanka, in terms of being outlawed from the community of nations, are dire.
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[TamilNet, Sunday, 08 December 2013, 15:20 GMT]
In a meeting on 6th December in Paris with Congo's President Joseph Kabila, UN Secretary General had "...congratulated the DRC for the successful military operation against the M23...," and "reiterated the United Nations support to the DRC for which President Kabila expressed his gratitude," a UN official readout of the meeting appearing in the UN website said. Inner City Press (ICP) which covers UN proceedings asked, "since when did the UN start congratulating governments for "successful military operations"?, and comparing against UN actions in Sri Lanka, said, "[t]his harkens back for some to the UN's approach in 2009 to the Sri Lankan government's "successful military operations" against the Tamil Tigers or LTTE. A rebel group was wiped out; in that case tens of thousands of civilians were killed."
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[TamilNet, Sunday, 08 December 2013, 01:29 GMT]
During the Second Session of the Peoples’ Tribunal on Sri Lanka which opened Saturday in Bremen, Germany, a panel of eleven eminent judges heard the "Prosecution outline its case that the crime of genocide has been and is being committed against the Tamil people in Sri Lanka," the press release issued by the sponsoring organizations, Permanent Peoples Tribunal (PPT) and Internationaler Menschenrechtsverein Bremen e.V. said. Eleven direct witnesses gave evidence to the panel during the first day. The judges, many of whom are legal scholars on genocide, will apply the principles enshrined in the 1948 Genocide Convention to the evidence presented, and announce their legal determination this Tuesday, December 10th.
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[TamilNet, Saturday, 07 December 2013, 19:42 GMT]
African leaders are raising concern over the actions of the 11-year old court of last resort, the International Criminial Court (ICC), where the eight cases that are currently active and the twenty-one defendents are all from Africa, Washington Post reported Sunday. The article quoted Richard Dicker from Human Rights Watch who countered Africa's arguments saying that African nations cannot deny redress to victims (in Darfur or Kenya) just because it is not possible to provide victims in Sri Lanka justice, implying that while ICC has failed to go after war-criminals in Sri Lanka even after the UN's Petrie Report has accused Sri Lanka of killing more than 70,000 Tamil civilians in the no-fire zone, this is not sufficient to deny african victims redress through the Court.
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[TamilNet, Saturday, 07 December 2013, 17:59 GMT]
The second phase of the Permanent People's Tribunal (PPT) hearings on determining if Sri Lanka committed genocide on Tamil people is being held in Bremen, Germany from the 7th-10th of December 2013. The hearing is being jointly organized by the Irish Forum for Peace in Sri Lanka (IFPSL) and International Human Rights Association (IMRV Bremen).
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[TamilNet, Friday, 06 December 2013, 01:31 GMT]
While Australian Premier, Tony Abbott, whose recent statements on condoning the allegations of torture by Sri Lanka security forces, was condemned by international rights groups, European media reported that one of top French ex-military officers, Aussaresses, who confessed to coldbloodedly torturing and summarily executing dozens of prisoners during France's brutal colonial war in Algeria decades earlier, and who defended his actions, passed away this week. He was 95. He was stripped of his medals, and was convicted later in France. Allegations of rape and torture are also rampant in Sri Lanka under the rule of Rajapakse-family, with UK charity Freedom From Torture documenting more than 60 cases of torture by Sri Lanka security forces, and Human Rights Watch documented 62 cases of sexual violence involving the security forces, noting that rape is widespread and systemic.
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[TamilNet, Thursday, 05 December 2013, 23:49 GMT]
Colombo has instructed Tamil health officials in Ki’linochchi district to obtain ‘affidavits’ from women who were subjected to a controversial coercive population control in three coastal villages of the district. The women are being approached to sign a document stating that they received subdermal implants on their own request for contraceptive protection. The latest move has come as the women, who were coerced to receive a long-term hormonal birth control implant inserted under the skin of their upper arm, have been complaining of side effects such as blood pressure, weight gain, irregular periods as well as traumatic stress after 2 months of the birth control experiment by the SL State. On 30 November, a 26-year-old woman, who was one of more than 50 victims subjected to contraceptive control, died at Jaffna hospital after a mysterious infection.
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[TamilNet, Thursday, 05 December 2013, 23:37 GMT]
Following the arrest of EPDP’s Jaffna District organizer and the opposition leader in the Northern Provincial Council Kamal Kamalendran for alleged involvement in the killing of the EPDP chairman of Neduntheevu civic body Mr Daniel Rexian alias Rajeev, the internal strife in the paramilitary group has widened. The involvement of EPDP operatives in the killing of Tamil journalists will be exposed, informed sources said. The Sri Lankan military intelligence has been using EPDP operatives to exercise control over the occupied Jaffna. Some of these operatives would be deployed as scapegoats when Colombo would be forced to conduct a show of investigations in the near future, the sources further said.
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[TamilNet, Tuesday, 03 December 2013, 15:30 GMT]
“Facing growing pressure by the international community for an effective investigation, Sri Lankan authorities are attempting to deflect public attention by claiming that another investigation into the Muttur massacre has been opened. However, deliberate subversion of the investigative process over the past 7 years and continuous harassment of witnesses and journalists who have raised the case have demonstrated that no effective legal action can be taken in today’s Sri Lanka in relation to the Muttur massacre,” said France-based NGO Action Contre la Faim (ACF), whose 17 humanitarian workers were shot and killed at point blank range by Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers in Moothoor, Trincomalee, in August 2006.
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[TamilNet, Tuesday, 03 December 2013, 12:29 GMT]
The Sri Lankan High Commissioner to Britain, Chris Nonis, declined to participate in a rights discussion on Sri Lanka held end of last week at the UK's Frontline club where the author of Sri Lanka's Unfinished War, Frances Harrison, Channel-4's producer of a series of documentaries on Sri Lanka's war, Callum Macrae, and policy and advocacy manager at Freedom from Torture, Sonya Sceats, took part. The discussion was moderated by barrister Sadakat Kadri, who was a rapporteur to the investigation into the impeachment of Sri Lanka’s Chief Justice.
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[TamilNet, Monday, 02 December 2013, 23:51 GMT]
The Permanent Peoples Tribunal (PPT) in Rome has announced the names of 11 judges, who would be hearing the long-awaited case on the accusation of genocide against Eezham Tamils to be heard by an independent panel. “Like in the first session, a respected panel of judges consisting of experts in Genocide studies, former UN-officials, experts in international law and renowned peace and human rights activists will hear the evidence that is presented and make a determination,” a press statement signed by Mr Gianni Tognoni, the secretary general of the PPT, stated. The first session held in January 2010, known as the Dublin Tribunal, was the first independent international undertaking that recognised the need to look into the case of genocide in the island of Sri Lanka. The second session is to take place between December 07 -10, 2013 in Bremen, Germany.
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[TamilNet, Monday, 02 December 2013, 18:10 GMT]
The Sri Lankan State through its administration kept the universities across the island closed while the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) took place in Colombo. Except the University of Jaffna, other universities were opened before 02 December. The reason for Colombo instructing its authorities to keep the Jaffna University closed till Monday was to make sure that the students were away from the University premises during the Heroes Day, the university management in Jaffna said. When the university was opened on Monday, the students staged a demonstration inside the premises. Sinhala and Muslim students also took part in the demonstration. Hundreds of riot control police commandos of the occupying Sri Lanka were deployed around the premises.
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[TamilNet, Sunday, 01 December 2013, 23:46 GMT]
The Chief Incumbent of Buddhist temple in Batticaloa, Ven. Ampitiye Sumanarathana Thera, who behaved violently at Ma'nmunai South-West (Paddippazhai) Divisional Secretariat, threatening the Tamil Divisional Secretary Ms Vilvaratnam continues the Sinhalicisation project at Batticaloa – Ampaa’rai border village, Kevu’liyaamadu, with the backing of the occupying Sri Lankan military. In the meantime, more Sinhalese were being brought into Kevu'liyaa-madu to occupy Tamil lands, civil sources in Batticaloa said.
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