Eastern University staff protest against impunity for ethnic violence by Sinhala students

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 31 May 2016, 22:07 GMT]
The administration of the Eastern University has failed to implement disciplinary decisions taken against certain Sinhala students, who have assaulted Tamil lecturers and students in the recent months, a spokesperson on behalf of the union non-academic staff at the Eastern University at Vanthaa'ru-moolai in Batticaloa told TamilNet on Tuesday as the union staged a one-day boycott against the continued failure by the administration to enforce discipline. The administration is under heavy pressure from Colombo's ministers and the intelligence officers of the occupying Sinhala military in the East, the protesters said. A one-day boycott was successfully staged at Vanthaa'ru-moolai, Trincomalee campus and at Swami Vipulananda Institute of Aesthetic Studies on Tuesday.
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Sinhala students assault Tamil student for posting Genocide Remembrance photo on Facebook

[TamilNet, Thursday, 26 May 2016, 23:08 GMT]
A group of Sinhala students at the Faculty of Commerce & Management at the Eastern University, situated at Vanthaa'ru-moolai in Batticaloa, assaulted a 22-year-old Tamil student on Tuesday for posting a photo of Tamil Genocide Remembrance in his Facebook account. The Tamil student, severely assaulted by the group of senior Sinhala students was admitted to Chengkaladi hospital after the incident. The SL military intelligence and SL police have been alleged of inciting violence using a section of Sinhalese students.
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Illegal occupation of pasturelands continues unabated in Ampaa’rai

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 24 May 2016, 07:55 GMT]
4,000 acres of lands, officially declared as pastureland in 1974, have been illegally seized by farmers having Colombo connections through their parliamentarians. The land situated between Rufus-ku’lam and Vammiyadik-ku’lam in Thirukkoayil division where Tamils constitute the majority of the residents, is known as Vadda-madu area and is situated 15 km southwest of Thirukkoayil. Tamil cattle farmers from Akkaraippattu complain that they are being deprived of sustaining their livelihood after the end of war.
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Kurdistan National Congress expresses solidarity with Tamils on genocide remembrance

[TamilNet, Sunday, 22 May 2016, 23:50 GMT]
The Kurdistan National Congress (KNK) has expressed its solidarity with the Tamil people on the 7th anniversary of the massacres committed against the Tamils and all civilian victims and their families during the war in the island. “Even though the ethnically-motivated mass murder of the Tamils shows clear features of genocide, it is not recognized as such by international institutions. In fact, the massacre on the Tamil people was possible due to the tacit approval of global actors,” the Brussels-based umbrella group of exiled Kurds said in a statement dated 20 May 2016. Comparing the oppression of the Kurds and the Tamils, the KNK said the model behind the States of Turkey and Sri Lanka, based on the hegemony of one ethnic group over another, is doomed to fail. The KNK also drew parallels between the continued support extended to these States by the Western powers.
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Colombo's pompous ‘Vesak’ in North endorsed by India, while celebrations cancelled in South

[TamilNet, Saturday, 21 May 2016, 23:20 GMT]
Colombo's occupying Sinhala military has launched 7-day-long Buddhist Vesak celebrations from Saturday in the country of Eezham Tamils while Vesak festivities have been called off in the South where at least 73 people have been killed in landslides caused by torrential rains and more than 200,000 have fled their homes in recent days. The genocidal military and the State have transformed Vesak celebrations as ‘Sinhala Buddhist victory’ over Tamils after the 2009 onslaught. The added feature this time is the open and official endorsement given by New Delhi to the genocide gesture. In its over-enthusiasm to counter Tamils marking Mu'l'livaaykkaal Genocide Day on 18 May, the SL military advertised ‘very pompous celebrations’ of Vesak in Tamil newspapers, inviting the Tamils in Jaffna to take part in their celebrations.
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Jayalalithaa victory sends significant messages

[TamilNet, Thursday, 19 May 2016, 18:02 GMT]
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa-led AIADMK retains government by winning 134 of 234 seats in the election results announced on Thursday. The DMK and its allies led by Kalaignar Karunanidhi have secured 98 seats. No other party or alliance has won any seat in the elections. Ms Jayalalithaa leading the Tamil Nadu Assembly, resolving repeatedly and unanimously demanding international investigation on Eezham Tamil genocide and referendum for Tamil Eelam, has made an international impact against the stand of New Delhi and Washington complicit in the genocide. Efforts were made to silence her. The endorsement she now gets from the people of Tamil Nadu is a fitting answer, commented Eezham Tamil political observers.
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Genocide Day marked in 3 districts of Eastern Province

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 18 May 2016, 23:34 GMT]
The students of the Eastern University situated at Vanthaa'ru-moolai in Batticaloa, civil society members and TNA politicians in Trincomalee, Batticaloa and Ampaa'rai district observed Genocide Remembrance Day events and memorial prayers at churches and temples on Wednesday. The Tamil National People's Front (TNPF) organised a memorial event at Vaakaarai, one of the most war-affected areas subjected to structural genocide under heavy militarisation in the Batticaloa district. In the meantime, the Tamil Peoples Council (TPC) organised memorial events at the historic Hindu temple and in a church in Batticaloa. TNA politicians working among the grassroots also travelled to North to attend the remembrance event at Mu'l'livaaykkal in Vanni on Wednesday.
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Continued denial of justice and Colombo's ban on remembering Tamil fighters condemned

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 17 May 2016, 23:43 GMT]
All the norms of war were broken to target a distinct race. The people in Vanni were targeted in a mass-slaughter, from children in womb to elders, by merciless ethnic chauvinism because they were all Tamil-speakers, said Jaffna University Student Union. Seven years have elapsed with continued denial of justice. Those who committed the crimes are walking scot free under the so-called good-governance, the JUSU said calling for Mu'l'livaaykkaal Genocide Remembrance within the premises of Jaffna University at 10:00 a.m. on Wednesday. In the meantime, NPC Councillor M.K. Shivajilingam, who lit the flame of sacrifice at the memorial site in Trincomalee for those subjected to genocidal slaughter in the Welikade prison in 1983, condemned the Sri Lankan State for denying Eezham Tamils the right to honour their fallen fighters.
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Colombo schemes 4 Buddhist temples in Kuchchave'li division of Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Monday, 16 May 2016, 20:13 GMT]
Genocidal State of Sri Lanka, regardless of regimes coming to power in Colombo, has been intensely spearheading a Sinhala colonisation programme to wedge the North and East at several strategic locations in the north of Trincomalee district and in the south of Mullaiththeevu district in North. Recently, the SL Ministry of Buddha Sasana in Colombo has approved funds to construct four new Buddhist temples (pansala) and viharas in predominantly Tamil-speaking Thennai-maravadi and Pulmoaddai areas that come under the Kuchchave'li division, Tamil civil sources in Trinocmalee told TamilNet on Monday. In the meantime, several pansalas are to be constructed in the bordering largely Sinhala division of Morawewa, where two Tamil villages, Panku'lam and Nochchik-ku'lam, are being subjected to Sinhalicisation, the sources further said.
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Neduntheevu marks Genocide Remembrance on 31st anniversary of Kumuthini massacre

[TamilNet, Sunday, 15 May 2016, 23:32 GMT]
Coinciding with the 31st anniversary of the massacre of 36 Tamil civilians on Kumuthini boat in 1985, the people of Nedun-theevu (Delft) island, the farthest inhabited island off the Jaffna Peninsula, marked the fourth day of Mu'l'livaaykkaal Genocide Remembrance Week on Sunday by paying tribute to all those who perished in the decades long genocide against Eezham Tamils. On 15 May 1985, 36 Tamil passengers, including four children and one of them being a two-year-old, were hacked to death by Sinhala Navy personnel, who came in two boats. The SL Navy later refused the people of Neduntheevu to commemorate their dead by destroying the memorial site, which was constructed at the jetty. This year, the remembrance took place at the newly constructed memorial site.
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Mu'l'livaaykkaal remembrance gains momentum amidst renewed harassments

[TamilNet, Saturday, 14 May 2016, 17:18 GMT]
Elected councillors of the Northern Provincial Council (NPC), former members of civic bodies, militant-turned political parties in the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) and the Tamil National Peoples' Front (TNPF) are engaged in organising memorial events in the country of Eezham Tamils amidst recently renewed threats and harassments against former Tamil fighters in the North and East. The SL military intelligence circles have been telling former members of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) that there will be consequences if they were seen paying tribute to fallen LTTE members. Not only the LTTE fighters, all the Tamils who wanted to be free and stood with the LTTE in Vanni while all the global Establishments were directly or indirectly assisting Colombo were all real Tamil Heroes, said NPC Councillors who are organising a series of memorial events and meetings in the North.
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Colombo's attempt to survey church lands for permanent militarisation foiled at Poonakari

[TamilNet, Friday, 13 May 2016, 08:29 GMT]
Three days after the last attempt to survey the lands belonging to 6 families and a Saiva temple at Paraman-kirray in the strategically situated Poonakari, the occupying navy of genocidal Sri Lanka attempted on Thursday to survey lands belonging to St. Jude's Church at Pa'l'lik-kudaa in Poonakari without prior notice. However, the Parish Priest of the church and more than 100 villagers blocked the survey department officials, who were brought to the spot with SL Navy escort, news sources in Poonakari said. In addition to the protest, the public spontaneously mobilised making a written signature campaign against the militarisation. The SL military intelligence operatives and SL Navy sailors were taking photos of the journalists who were covering the protest and recording video of the protestors in a threatening manner, news sources further said.
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SL Police refuses to vacate from lands belonging to uprooted Tamils in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Thursday, 12 May 2016, 18:03 GMT]
Colombo's police continue to be stationed in lands belonging to 42 families in Paala-munai village and a large section of Ma'ndoor-1 and 2 South GS area in Poaratheevup-pattu (Vellaa-ve'li) administrative division of Batticaloa district. The uprooted people are unable to resettle in 90% of Paalamunai village, civil sources in Batticaloa said. The area is located 40 km south of Batticaloa city near the border of Ampaa'rai district. Ma'ndoor is known for its popular Murukan temple.
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Sinahalicisation of Musali division in Mannaar resembles colonisation of Kokku'laay, Ma'nalaa'ru

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 11 May 2016, 20:22 GMT]
SL Government Agent of Mannaar district, Mr M.Y.S. Deshapriya, a Sinhalese and the occupying navy of Colombo are allegedly engaged in creating a Sinhala colony at Kaayaa-kuzhi, situated near Mu'l'lik-ku'lam in the Musali division of Mannaar, say Tamil and Muslim fishermen from the district. While hundreds of Eezham Tamil families from Mu'l'lik-ku'lam are not allowed to resettle in their own village, which has been transformed into a SL Navy cantonment named “North-Western Naval Area HQ of SL Navy”, Colombo is attempting to colonize the nearby Kaayaa-kuzhi area by permanently settling 70 - 80 Sinhala fishing families from Chilaapam (Chilaw) and Negombo, said Mr Noor Mohamed Aalam, the chairman of the Federation of Mannaar District Fisheries Associations. Tamil and Muslim fishermen societies have announced a protest against the move on Friday.
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Eezham Tamils protest against continued military land grab at strategic Poonakari

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 10 May 2016, 18:35 GMT]
The occupying Sinhala military of genocidal Sri Lanka has planned to grab further 3,087 acres of private and permit lands in the strategically situated Poonakari, which is situated to the northwest of Ki'linochchi at the entrance to Jaffna Peninsula, Jaffna Lagoon and its location facing the Palk Bay and the opposite coast. The landowners of 6 families and an Amman temple blocked SL Survey Department officials for the 4th time at Paraman-kiraay on Monday. Around 6,000 Tamil families, dependent on agriculture and fishing, live in the heavily garrisoned Poonakari division where more than 30,000 Sinhala soldiers are stationed.
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SL Governor condemned for justifying military-run preschools in Vanni

[TamilNet, Sunday, 08 May 2016, 22:55 GMT]
NGO sources in Vanni recently released photos exposing the SL military-run preschools where Tamil children were being made to wear ‘Civil Security Division’ uniforms with CSD and Lion symbols of the occupying Sri Lankan military. More than 8,000 Tamil children are attending the military-run preschools in Vanni at 270 locations. While the SL military is refusing to hand over the administration of these preschools to the provincial council, the SL Governor to North, Reginald Cooray, has rushed to Vanni last week to justify continued military administration of these preschools. Former LTTE members at three different locations were forced to sing ‘Sri Lanka’ anthem in Sinhala and the CSD women had to garland him after dancing in Kandyan Perhara style, news sources in Vanni said. NPC Minister P. Aingaranesan has condemned SL Governor's description of SL military as a ‘development’ agency.
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Returning Tamil journalists forced to pledge written oath to unitary State

[TamilNet, Saturday, 07 May 2016, 21:27 GMT]
None of the Tamil journalists or political activists, who were exiled during and after the Vanni war, could return to their native Northern or Eastern provinces without getting whitelisted by the military intelligence of the occupying Sinhala military prior to their entry into the North and East. Media activists from Colombo who met a group Tamil journalists in Vanni this week told TamilNet that a section of journalists in North had met Major General Mahesh Senanayake on 06 April at Palaali military base. When the journalists questioned the SL commander that some of their exiled journalists, currently residing in Tamil Nadu and other countries, were wondering about returning to the island. The SL commander had refused to officially comment, but shared this information in a ‘unofficial’ way, the sources further said.
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Protest by dairy farmers brings EPC Minister, GA to inspect Sinhala occupation in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Friday, 06 May 2016, 23:18 GMT]
After seizing around 16,000 acres of lands, which were officially allocated as grazing lands for the cattle in the Batticaloa district, more than 300 families of Sinhala colonisers from Polonnaruwa, Badulla and Moneragala districts have started to construct a Buddhist temple under the leadership of a former Sinhala policeman at Mayilaththamadu, which comes under Koa'ra'laip-pattu South (Kiraan) division of Batticaloa district. The area was under LTTE administration during the times of war and peace until 2007. The occupying ‘Sri Lanka’ Army is having a artillery base near the new Buddhist temple, which has been put up after January 2016. The SL Government Agent of Batticaloa and Eastern Provincial Agriculture Minister inspected the illegal occupation as 259 Tamil dairy farmers started to boycott their daily supply of 3,000 litres milk to Milco from May 1st demanding immediate action.
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SL TID cites Facebook ‘private messages’ as evidence to restrict Tamil political activism

[TamilNet, Monday, 02 May 2016, 23:42 GMT]
The notorious ‘Terrorist’ Investigation Division (TID), currently engaged in containing the voices against the abduction and hostage taking styled arrests in the North and East, has claimed in communication to Chaavakachcheari Magistrate's Court that they have accessed Facebook private messages and chats that have taken place between individuals in the Diaspora and the occupied country of Eezham Tamils, legal sources in Jaffna told TamilNet on Monday. In a recent case where the secretary of Ilangkai Thamizh Arasuk Kadchi (ITAK) Youth Wing V.S. Sivakaran was detained and later released on surety bail, the TID had submitted the above argument as ‘evidence’ to the courts, the sources said adding that the TID was silencing critical voices in the island by deploying surveillance agencies outside the island.
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