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[TamilNet, Monday, 31 July 2017, 22:36 GMT]
Divisional Secretaries, who have been defending the interests of Tamil land-owners in Batticaloa District in the Eastern Province, continue to face harassment from the Colombo-centric administrative system with transfers, according to Tamil civil sources in the district. Ali Zazhir Mouland, a UNP parliamentarian elected with the votes from Tamils, has been instrumental in influencing SL Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe in transferring two divisional secretaries in recent months, civil sources in Batticaloa revealed. Politicians aligned with UNP and SLFP are competing with each other in exploiting the resources of Eezham Tamils in the East. Amidst the competition, certain parliamentarians have become more powerful than SL ministers as far as the Eastern Province is concerned, the Tamil officials commented.
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[TamilNet, Sunday, 30 July 2017, 23:40 GMT]
The occupying Colombo has grabbed 1,300 acres of coastal lands from four administrative divisions in Batticaloa for commercial exploitation by Sinhala and external actors aligned with Colombo, a highly placed source in the Eastern Provincial Council (EPC) told TamilNet. The lands are mostly situated within 500 meters from the territorial sea baseline, the officials said. The EPC was under pressure from Colombo to hand over the lands for its ‘tourism’ business, the sources further said. 21 Paadus (sea beds falling within the scope of draw-nets) of Eezham Tamils are directly affected by the seizure. In the meantime, the divisional secretaries of all the 14 divisions in Batticaloa have been instructed by Colombo to evaluate the value of private and public lands, the sources further said. Similar land grab is also taking place in Trincomalee.
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[TamilNet, Saturday, 29 July 2017, 23:36 GMT]
 The District Secretariats of Sinhala Government Agents of Anuradhapura District in the North Central Province and Vavuniyaa District in the Northern Province are silently implementing a Sinhala colonisation scheme along the borders of Vavuniyaa, Anuradhapura and Mullaiththeevu, says NPC Councillor T. Ravikaran, who hails from Mullaiththeevu district. The Divisional Secretariat of Ma'nal-aa'ru, a division which has been completely Sinhalicised in Mullaiththeevu district and the divisional secretariats bordering Mullaiththeevu district with Anuradhapura and Vavuniyaa districts have introduced new schemes with settlement packages. Traditional Tamil villages and the jungles adjoining the bordering Sinhala villages are being targeted with ethnic Sinhala settlements while the uprooted Tamil people are struggling for resettlement in the villages without infrastructure assistance, he said.
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[TamilNet, Friday, 28 July 2017, 18:42 GMT]
Although the EU's de-proscription of the LTTE is promising, the Tamil right to assembly, speech, and expression remains transnationally undermined by the persistence of post-war LTTE bans in multiple jurisdictions. These bans should be challenged on legal grounds to reclaim Tamil political space in North-America and Europe, said a Tamil diaspora legal activist who worked with Netherlands-based lawyer to prepare the legal basis for the case. The decision by the European Court of Justice, albeit belated, is not self-executing at the nation-state level within the EU. As such, ‘terrorism’ related national security policies of European governments will likely continue to operate as bulwark against Tamil asylum claims and as a non-invasive surveillance model for Tamil political mobilization.
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[TamilNet, Thursday, 27 July 2017, 19:17 GMT]
The so-called SL Minister of Resettlement, D.M. Swaminathan has become a money transfer agent between the occupying military of genocidal Sri Lanka and the Western donor states backing the unitary State based in Colombo, commented Tamil activists in Mullaiththeevu after meeting a delegation of protesting people from Keappaa-pulavu, who met the SL minister on Wednesday. The SL Minister, in his meeting with the representatives of the protesting people, has revealed that the SL military was demanding 148 million rupees in order to release 110 acres of their lands in the ‘next phase’. The so-called international community seems to pay money to its Lascarine military. Tamil diaspora activists should scrutinise the funds being channelled to the UN system and the NGOs operating in Colombo, they said.
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[TamilNet, Tuesday, 25 July 2017, 20:12 GMT]
 Popular Mridangam artist Kannathasan Kanesasundaram, who is a lecturer at the Arts faculty of the University of Jaffna and who was formerly the director of Tamil Eelam College of Fine Arts while he was a member of LTTE's Political Division, has been sentenced to life imprisonment by a High Court of the judiciary of genocidal Sri Lanka on Tuesday. The news has sent shockwaves across the intellectual community of Eezham Tamils. The 50-year-old father of three has been earlier released after SL military ‘rehabilitation’. However, he was again targeted by the SL military intelligence through a family that had lost their daughter in the war. The artist, known by his stage name Tha'nikai-maa'ran, was a close associate of Eezham Tamil Poet Puthuvai Ratnathurai, whose whereabouts is still not known after the occupying Sinhala military had him in its custody in May 2009.
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[TamilNet, Monday, 24 July 2017, 17:43 GMT]
 The occupying ‘Sri Lanka’ is once again actively engaged in scheming seizure of 36,000 acres of lands in addition to the lands it has already grabbed during the regime of Mahinda Rajapaksa in Chu'ndik-ku'lam in Vadamaraadchi East under the pretext of ‘bird sanctuary’. Another sinister move is now under way under the so-called expansion of Chun'dik-ku'lam Bird Sanctuary into a ‘National Park’ of genocidal ‘Sri Lanka’. The SL Wild Life Department is organising a ‘special meeting’ on 8th August before the seizure is to be officially gazetted, informed civil sources in Jaffna told TamilNet on Monday. In the meantime, the occupying SL military is expanding its military corporatism as well as harbouring the intruding Sinhala fishermen. The SL Navy has been blocking Tamil fishermen from entering the coastal stretch.
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[TamilNet, Sunday, 23 July 2017, 16:28 GMT]
A Sinhala police Sergeant Hemachandra from Chilaapam (Chilaw), who functioned as security officer to Jaffna High Court Judge M. Ilancheliyan for 17 years and sustained injuries in the assassination attempt on Judge Ilancheliyan on Saturday, succumbed to his injuries at Jaffna Hospital in the early hours on Sunday. Several activist groups in Jaffna have urged Eezham Tamils to pay homage to the Sinhala policeman on Monday, news sources in Jaffna said following emotional remarks from Judge Ilancheliyan on the service and sacrifice of Sgt Hemachandra.
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[TamilNet, Saturday, 22 July 2017, 13:58 GMT]
 Jaffna High Court Judge Manickavasagam Ilancheliyan narrowly escaped assassination attempt at Nalloor in Jaffna around 5:10 p.m. on Saturday. Two guards giving security to him sustained injuries in the incident. The judge, who was not injured, told TamilNet that the attacker seemed to be an experienced gunman. Judge Manickavasagam Ilancheliyan is well known for his independent judgements. He is also known to be not hesitating to rule against armed criminal elements that operate with the backing of the occupying SL military. The incident on Saturday has taken place at a time Nalloor temple is preparing for its annual festival which is scheduled to commence on coming Friday.
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[TamilNet, Saturday, 22 July 2017, 12:54 GMT]
Representatives of enforced disappeared families, waging a continuous protest demanding the SL State to declare the whereabouts of their missing kith and kin after they were handed over in front of them to the SL military, which promised amnesty after the end of genocidal onslaught in Vanni in May 2009, on Friday categorically denounced the Office of Missing Persons mechanism as an eyewash move. Mrs Leelathevy Anathanadarajah and Mrs Kanakaranjai Yogarajah who held a press conference in Ki'linochchi said the enforced families engaged in continuous struggle in the four districts of Jaffna, Ki'linochchi, Mullaiththeevu and Vavuniyaa in North and in the Trincomalee district in the East, also condemn the Western countries that have rushed to welcome the SL President Maithiripala Sirisena implementing the OMP.
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[TamilNet, Friday, 21 July 2017, 20:57 GMT]
The occupying Sinhala military has deployed military training inside in Valikaamam East and Valikaamam North during the past 3 days, especially near Vazhalaay in Valikaamam East where uprooted people were settled in military constructed houses. This is the first time large-scale coordinated field training with gunfire and RPG fire has been witnessed in the area since the regime change, the resettled families said. Similar gunfire and explosions were also heard in Valikaamam North causing anxiety among the resettled people, news sources in Jaffna said.
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[TamilNet, Wednesday, 19 July 2017, 23:19 GMT]
The uprooted families in Keappaa-pulavu, who have been engaged in a continuous struggle for 141 days on Wednesday confronted SL minister for ‘Prison Reforms, Rehabilitation, Resettlement and Hindu Religious Affairs’ D.M. Swaminathan, who was visiting Keappaa-pulavu on Wednesday as part of a SL military conceived deception of releasing lands back to the people. None of the plots in the ‘released’ 189 acres of lands belong to the uprooted 138 families in Keappaa-pulavu who have been involved in the protest. The disappointed protesters exposed how the SL military is trying to release lands elsewhere in the jungle outlet and buying time and money without releasing even an iota of the lands of Keappaa-pulavu families. In the meantime, Colombo is scheming Sinhalicisation through seizing 2,524 acres of lands in Kokkuththoduvaay to permanently wedge North and East.
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[TamilNet, Monday, 17 July 2017, 17:27 GMT]
More than a hundred Tamil youth, predominantly males, mobilized through social media took to the streets on Sunday in Mullaiththeevu, opposing controversial SL minister Rishad Bathiudeen, who is pushing ahead with a colony for Muslim settlers in Mullaiththeevu. At a time when Muslims and Tamils should stand together confronting the genocidal Sinhala occupation to the north and to the south of Kokku’laay lagoon, which links the northern and eastern provinces, the SL minister’s scheme attempts to set the Tamils against Muslims in Mullaiththeevu, Tamil activists in Vanni said. The protest by Tamil youth comes after Northern Provincial Council Chief Minister C.V.Wigneswaran walked out of a District Coordinating Committee meeting 7 days ago as Mr Bathiudeen was insisting on his colony declining to honour the proposal from the Justice Wigneswaran of a proportional formula for resettlement.
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[TamilNet, Sunday, 16 July 2017, 13:45 GMT]
The SL Attorney General's Department has instructed Ooraaththu'rai (Kayts) Magistrate's Court to release 42 Indian trawlers that are in the custody of the SL occupying Navy at Kaangkeasanthu'rai naval base. The trawlers were confiscated from the Indian poachers. The move comes after the SL Government passed a bill to ban bottom trawling. However, Indian trawlers continue to engage in bottom trawling, Eezham Tamil fishermen in Jaffna complain. The fishermen societies in Jaffna want to see an effective end to the Indian poaching before releasing their vessels. But, Colombo regime, as usual, is preoccupied with its relationship with New Delhi than protecting the interests of the Tamil fishermen in the North, they said. BJP rulers in New Delhi are also engaged in legitimising the genocide culture of the unitary ‘Sri Lanka’, the fishermen societies further blamed citing the recent trends.
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[TamilNet, Friday, 14 July 2017, 09:37 GMT]
A serious question is being raised by rights activists in Jaffna on the underlying motive of SL police of gunning down 24-year-old Yogarajah Thinesh on Sunday while he was transporting illegally scooped sand at Kudaththanai in Vadamaraadchi East. Whether the SL police was hunting a competing group of sandscoopers who were not paying the share to the SL military, or whether the SL police is attempting to cover up something in the investigations, question the rights activists. The occupying SL military with the backing of police exploits the business of illegal scooping of sand in Kudaththanai making millions of rupees of income every month. In the name of conducting investigations on the killing of the Tamil youth, the fellow workers who were in the vehicle, are going to be subjected to harassment undermining the investigation.
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[TamilNet, Thursday, 13 July 2017, 16:19 GMT]
Occupying Colombo is continuing to sustain illegal colonies of Sinhala colonists despite recent eyewash measures of annulling encroachment of Sinhala settlers in the deed lands owned by Tamil farmers and in the lands allocated for the purpose of pasture lands in the interior villages bordering Polonnaruwa and Ampaa'rai districts. 10 Sinhala colonist families are intentionally kept in the in the deed lands of Eezham Tamils in Kevu'liyaa-madu while 39 colonist families have vacated the area after selling the roofs and doors of their houses. A Buddhist temple constructed in the area in 4 acres of lands belonging to Tamils is still maintained, Tamil activists in Paddippazhai said. Kevu'liyaa-madu comes under Kachchatkodi Swami-malai GS division in Ma'nmunaip-pattu South (Paddippazhai) DS division and is situated southwest of Batticaloa lagoon, 13 km away from Batticaloa city.
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[TamilNet, Wednesday, 12 July 2017, 15:05 GMT]
The so-called National Intelligene Bureau based in Colombo has started to harass Eezham Tamil social activists who have been actively engaged in resettling uprooted Tamil villagers at 60th Mile Post, which is situated in the administrative division of Poththuvil in Ampaa'rai district. Tamil activists in Poththuvil say that the Sinhala military intelligence operatives have been visiting their houses warning them against their activism. The intelligence officers in civil uniform were also telling the social activists that it was ‘illegal’ to collect details of people in an attempt to silence their activism. The threats have come after a Sinhala NGO personality based in South had obtained the details including the documents of land deeds from the activists.
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[TamilNet, Tuesday, 11 July 2017, 06:08 GMT]
 Two policemen of occupying Sri Lanka shot and killed a daily wage worker on Sunday in Jaffna while he was in a vehicle that was transporting illegally scooped sand. The SL policemen chasing the vehicle in their motorbike have intentionally fired targeting the youth who was seated on top of the sand load, the family said. The victim, 24-year-old Yogarajah Thinesh, had lost his father in the genocidal war and the family was dependent on him. He was looking after the family of his sister, who had also lost her husband in the war, the relatives said. Tension prevailed in Thunnaalai in Vadamaraadchi South-West on Sunday and Monday as the villagers were agitating against the SL police, demanding the killers to be identified and brought to justice. SL military and STF were preparing to cordon off and deploy a crackdown style arrest operation after the funeral on Tuesday, the residents alleged.
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[TamilNet, Sunday, 09 July 2017, 23:27 GMT]
 A group of young Eezham Tamil diaspora activists as well as progressive activists of older generation, numbering around 30, got together in front of the Indian High Commission in London stressing the need to mobilise against the arrest of May 17 Movement Coordinator Thirumurugan Gandhi and three activists of Thamizh Vidiyal Kadchi who have been detained under draconian Goondas Act in Tamil Nadu after they organised a candle vigil remembrance in May for those who perished in Mu’l’livaaykkaal genocide. Thirumurugan Gandhi has been targeted not only for voicing against the genocide of Eezham Tamils. He has been one of the key articulators against the economic exploitation of resources by India’s ruling BJP backed corporate Establishments. The activists who gathered in front of the India House in London said the protest was particularly intended as an awareness campaign among Eezham Tamils.
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[TamilNet, Thursday, 06 July 2017, 14:38 GMT]
An SL Police officer, A.K.A. Sawahir, who chased away uprooted Tamil villagers who went to their village of Kokkdaddi (Vaddavan) in October 2015 on the instruction of Moothoor Divisional Secretary V. Yoosuff and the SL Forest Department, has now illegally grabbed 10 acres of lands at the same locality for himself with the help of the DS Secretary, allege the Tamil villagers who have been refused access to their lands in Champoor East of Trincomalee district. Kokkaddi is an ancient Tamil coastal village with fertile upper lands suitable for agriculture and farming.
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[TamilNet, Wednesday, 05 July 2017, 20:47 GMT]
 Consul General of India in Jaffna A. Natarajan was visiting the Chief Incumbent monk of Nagadeepa vihara in Naiyinaa-theevu, Navadagala Paduma Kiththi Tissa Thero on Wednesday. The CGI visiting the Sinhala-Buddhist monk at Nayinaatheevu, who is treated by the occupying Sinhala Navy as a commander as standing above the executive SL President, is sending wrong signals to Eezham Tamils and the people of Tamil Nadu State in India, commented Tamil political activists in Jaffna. The extremist monk who doesn't adhere to the civic rule or the provincial council in North has recently recommenced the controversial construction of 67-feet Buddha statue. The visit also comes after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to the island on International Vesak Day two months ago.
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[TamilNet, Monday, 03 July 2017, 23:12 GMT]
 The SL military on Monday released 27 acres along the fishing jetty in Mayiliddi in Valikaamam North and another lot of 27 acres surrounding a Hindu temple near the locality. Amidst the big propaganda, no residential lands were released. All those who wanted to witness the ‘release’ of lands were taken by the occupying SL Army in military vehicles across the ‘High Security Zone’ and later brought back in the same vehicles. There is no land link for the people to access the released pocket of lands.
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[TamilNet, Sunday, 02 July 2017, 09:49 GMT]
 A false propaganda was recently let loose through Sinhala media in the South hinting that Tamils in the North were reluctant to donate their blood to the blood bank in Jaffna due to ‘caste differences’ prevailing among them. The propaganda, seems to have originated from Colombo’s “Army and Archaeology,” which is interlinked with the extremist sections of Buddhist Establishment. After the Goebbelsian tactic of connecting ‘caste’ and ‘Tamil blood’, a section of extremist Sinhala monks were brought to Jaffna with symptoms of ‘superiority complex’ to donate ‘Sinhala blood’ to the blood bank in Jaffna, commented medical sources in Jaffna. The same tendency was working in the rape of Tamil women too, said Tamil political observers.
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