Muslims join Tamils opposing Colombo's suppression of Thileepan Remembrance in North

[TamilNet, Monday, 28 September 2020, 23:19 GMT]
Tamil business and student communities in the North-East observed hartal on Monday condemning SL State's widespread hostility towards the annual commemoration of Lt Col Thileepan on Saturday. Occupying Colombo's police and military were trying to block the business owners from conducting the shutdown. However, the business chambers didn't succumb to the pressure. Also, Muslim traders in the cities of North fully observed shutdown. They also marked hartal in their residential suburbs in Jaffna showing solidarity with Eezham Tamils. Except for the hospitals and necessary public transportation, the cities and towns were at a standstill in Jaffna, Mullaiththeevu, Vavuniyaa and Mannaar.
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Tamils unify to mark Thileepan Remembrance, brave Colombo's suppression of memorialisation

[TamilNet, Sunday, 27 September 2020, 12:05 GMT]
Colombo's widespread attempts through SL judiciary, Police and military covering all the potential memorial sites and the Maaveerar square within the University of Jaffna, didn't manage to curb Eezham Tamils, their grassroots activists and politicians from marking the collective memorialisation events on Saturday on the occasion of 33rd commemoration of Lt Col Thileepan. Jaffna University students took part in three events in Jaffna, Chaavakachcheari and Vavuniyaa North. All mainstream Tamil parties doing politics on Tamil nationalist platform were brought together by the pressure from Tamil media, grassroots activists and the students who were responding to the suppression coming from Colombo. All Tamil dailies published in the Tamil homeland gave prominence to Thileepan Remembrance and highlighted Colombo's harassment against the collective memorialisation events.
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UN Rights Chief joins her predecessors in watering down collective rights of genocide affected people

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 15 September 2020, 06:37 GMT]
Without imposing a robust follow-up on the unitary state of genocidal Sri Lanka, which withdrew its support to UN Human Rights Resolution 30/1 that failed to address genocide justice, international investigations and ensure the collective rights of the people of the occupied traditional Tamil homeland in the North-East, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet was just “encouraging” the Council to “give renewed attention to Sri Lanka, in view of the need to prevent threats to peace, reconciliation and sustainable development.” Ms Bachelet was only referring to “commitments” made by the Rajapaksa regime “since it withdrew its support for resolution 30/1”.
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High voter turnout registered in North-East

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 05 August 2020, 23:41 GMT]
The voter turnout was higher than the last two elections in district of Jaffna, according to District Secretary K. Mahesan. Similarly, high turnout was also registered in the other four districts, Ki'linochchi, Mannaar, Vavuniyaa and Mullaiththeevu in the Northern province. The polling was also above 70% in the three districts of Eastern province. The trend was unique to North-East as Vanni, Batticaloa and Jaffna seem to be the electorates where the people showed more interest than the 2015 elections.
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University students mark Black July Remembrance in Jaffna, Vavuniyaa and Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Thursday, 23 July 2020, 22:46 GMT]
Tamil university students in Jaffna, Vavuniyaa and Batticaloa staged remembrance events within their university premises. Jaffna University Student Union leaders, who gathered at their office lighting candles for the victims of the 1983 SL State-sponsored pogrom against Tamils in the island said Black July remembrance must be integral to the process of international justice on Tamil genocide. Remembrance events were also observed at Vavuniyaa campus and the Eastern University. In the meantime, Tamil political parties that usually organise Black July Remembrance events, were too busy this time with their election campaign.
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Colombo's Archaeology Department, SL Police threaten chief priest of Chiththaa'ndi temple

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 21 July 2020, 23:30 GMT]
Officials of occupying Colombo's Archaeology Department visited the ancient Saiva (Hindu) Murukan temple at Chiththaa'ndi, located 20 km north of Batticaloa city, last month on 26 June. The visiting team was taking photographs of stones used for crack opening coconuts and for burning camphor as well as the stone slabs used in the temple for various purposes. They claimed that the rocks resembled Buddhist artefacts and that they should be delivered back to the SL Archaeology Department. Sivasri Vasantharajah Kurukka'l, the chief priest of the temple, told them that the stones had been there for several decades while other slabs were produced in Vavuniyaa in 2010 when the temple was renovated. On Sunday, SL Policemen from Batticaloa visited the temple blaming the chief priest for ‘not cooperating’ with the officials of the department.
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Colombo transfers Tamil Political Prisoners to notorious Anuradhapura prison

[TamilNet, Monday, 06 July 2020, 19:06 GMT]
The prison authorities of New Magazine Prison in Colombo have transferred twenty Tamil Political Prisoners (TPPs) to Anuradhapura prison on Saturday. Five of eleven TPPs who narrowly escaped death or injury at Anuradhaprison prison during the rioting on 21 March and later relocated to Jaffna have also been sent back to Anuradhapura jail on 30 June, legal sources in Jaffna said. All the TPPs at the Anuradhapura have been jailed along with Sinhala hardcore prisoners at death row or life imprisonment. The families of the TPPs are concerned for the safety of the TPPs.
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SL Police blocks journalists covering SL Navy-led quarantine transportation

[TamilNet, Monday, 25 May 2020, 22:43 GMT]
Occupying SL Navy and Police are blocking journalists in the North from exposing the use of Tamil areas as large-scale COVID-19 quarantine centres. Two Tamil journalists were recording video of a convoy of seventeen buses that were bringing individuals from South to SL military-operated quarantine centre at Pampai-madu in Vavuniyaa on Sunday. The SL Navy responded by blocking the A9 Road with the convoy until the SL Police negotiated with the journalists not to publish the video.
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Remembrance event urges Tamils to own justice project, establish genocidal intent of Sinhala state

[TamilNet, Monday, 18 May 2020, 07:11 GMT]
The UN and the West, adopting a “soft approach” towards the “Sinhala state” have not only paved the way for diluting the gravity of its crimes. They also emboldened the SL State to wage unabatedly its post-2009 “structural genocide” against Tamils in the North-East, said the declaration of the main May 18 Remembrance event, held at Mu'l'livaaykkaal on Monday. One of the lessons learnt by the Tamils was that they must be careful in trusting anyone, who portray themselves as the saviours of Tamils. Demanding justice for the genocide must be a mechanism to pursue the cause of Tamil national question, especially by “proving the intent of the genocide,” the statement read by Fr Leo Armstrong proclaimed. Around three-hundred Eezham Tamils braved the seven-layered SL military blockade in their resolve to mark the eleventh May 18 Remembrance and Awakening Day against Tamil genocide emotionally.
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Fifteenth year of Sivaram's assassination remembered in North-East amidst pandemic

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 29 April 2020, 21:45 GMT]
Tamil journalists and the people engaged in continuous protests in the North and East marked the 15th anniversary of Maamanithar Sivaram Dharmeratnam’s assassination remembering his contribution to the Tamil struggle. Journalist associations in Batticaloa, Vavuniyaa and Jaffna staged remembrance events with social distancing and limited participation due to pandemic mitigation measures. Sivaram, who wrote articles under the nom-de-plume Taraki was abducted and assassinated allegedly by the SL State’s Intelligence agency in Colombo. Taraki, well versed in geopolitical affairs, was a reputed military analyst and a columnist for Colombo-based Daily Mirror. He was a senior editor of TamilNet for almost eight years until his demise at the age of 46.
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Occupying Colombo converts 6 Tamil colleges in North as quarantine centres for SL military

[TamilNet, Monday, 27 April 2020, 21:53 GMT]
Occupying Colombo’s military has started to convert a Tamil college of teachers in Jaffna and five other schools in the Northern province as Quarantine Centres for military personnel stationed in the region. Civil sources in the North have condemned it as a high-handed move disregarding the safety of Tamil civilians in the densely populated areas. The top brass of the Sinhala military has not consulted the provincial and local authorities. They have not even asked the provincial health director for advice. Nirosh Thiyagarajah, the Chairman of Valikaamam East Divisional Council, has condemned the conversion of Jaffna National College of Education (JNCOE) at Koappaay into a military QC.
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Colombo brings 1,100 persons from South to military-operated Quarantine Centres in North

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 22 April 2020, 16:29 GMT]
Civil authorities in the North were not informed in advance about SL authorities in Colombo starting to bring a large number of people, around 1100 persons, to military-operated Quarantine Centres in the Northern Province. Northern Provincial Regional Director of Health Services (RDHS) Dr A Ketheeswaran said he was yet to receive details when contacted by TamilNet on Wednesday. However, he was told by SL Army Commander Lt Gen Shavendra Silva that the office of the RDHS, as well as the Government Agents of the districts in the province, would receive the details. The SL military has started to quarantine ninety-nine persons in Palaali, informed sources said. Earlier, there were reports of cross infections due to “dormitory” type of isolation centres operated by the Palaali-based military at KKS.
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Homeless Tamil dies of alleged starvation under curfew and SL militarised conditions in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Saturday, 11 April 2020, 21:04 GMT]
A homeless older Tamil man, who was depending on alms in the streets of Jaffna city has passed away, possibly due to starvation on Saturday. The death comes as the occupying SL State has been deploying its military to control every aspect of the civic engagement in the occupied North-East in an unproportionate scale as not witnessed in the South, health workers complained. They didn’t wish to be named due to security reasons. The Tamil-speaking community has been severely restricted from self-mobilising to help the underprivileged. In the meantime, PMS Charles, a close confidante of Rajapaksa establishment, appointed as the SL Governor to North by SL President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, has muzzled the mouth of healthcare workers and public officials as well as punishing her media secretary, journalists in Jaffna said.
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Increasing pattern of Sinhala officials controlling civil affairs in North-East: Wigneswaran, Mavai

[TamilNet, Thursday, 05 March 2020, 23:21 GMT]
The previous regime in Colombo was employing Sinhalese from the South to the vacancies of unskilled labourers in the North. For example, Sinhala youth were deployed in large numbers for the job of electricity meter reading in households in the North. However, the present regime has gone a step further installing Sinhalese also in the top positions of the civil administration in the North-East, observed former Northern Provincial Council Chief Minister Justice C.V. Wigneswaran. He was responding to a question from TamilNet on the recent trends of Sinhalicisation and militarisation of the civil administration in the occupied country of Eezham Tamils at the prolonged absence of the elected provincial councils.
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IC accountable for Gotabaya reneging on justice commitments: TNA MP

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 21 January 2020, 22:24 GMT]
Several countries in the International Community (IC) supported the Sri Lankan State that waged a genocidal war against the Tamils. The Tamil national liberation struggle and its taproot [the LTTE] were wiped out through a genocidal war by the SL State with the backing of other states in the IC. It was Gotabaya Rajapaksa who commanded the genocidal war in 2008 and 2009. Now, what are these countries going to do to enforce international justice, especially after Mr Rajapaksa pronouncing all the missing as dead, asked Tamil National Alliance Parliamentarian S Shritharan at the SL Parliament on Tuesday. Today, we are voicing for justice as a nation subjected to genocide. We are not merely speaking from a suppressed situation or a coated environment of so-called development, Mr Shritharan said adding that Tamils were no longer begging for justice, but demanding international justice.
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Gotabaya deploys PTA against protesting families of missing persons

[TamilNet, Thursday, 09 January 2020, 22:53 GMT]
The coordinator of the continuous protest in Vavuniyaa Jeyavanitha Kasippillai is again facing harassment from the ‘Terrorist’ Investigation Division of the SL Police which is compelling her to appear for an investigation under the notorious Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA). The cabinet of Gotabaya Rajapaksa has recently refused to withdraw the PTA. The latest harassment comes as the attempts by Douglas Devananda, an ex-paramilitary collaborator of Rajapaksa regime, miserably failed to end the continuous protests in the North and East. The families of Tamils subjected to enforced disappearances at the hands of the occupying Sinhala military have spent more than 1,055 days in continuous protests in the North and East.
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61 parents of missing persons have perished while continuing protest beyond 1,050 days

[TamilNet, Monday, 06 January 2020, 23:30 GMT]
The kith and kin of Eezham Tamils subjected to enforced disappearances at the hands of the occupying Sinhala military are passing away, one by one. Their deaths occur as the SL State, and the global forces behind the deceptive ‘transitional justice’ mechanism continue to remain deaf to their demand of establishing the truth of what had happened to their loved ones. While a section of families avoid protests succumbing to the so-called pragmatic view that the SL military had assassinated all the missing family members under its captivity, the protesting families want an official answer establishing what had happened to their loved ones. 72-year-old Rasendram Soosaippillai from Oalaith-thoduvaay in Mannaar was the 61st parent to die without a response from the SL authorities on the whereabouts of his son, who was abducted ten years ago in Mannaar.
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Families of missing Tamils in Vanni turn their protest against EPDP

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 31 December 2019, 17:41 GMT]
The families of Eezham Tamils subjected to enforced disappearances at the hands of the occupying Sinhala military in the genocidal war up to 2009 have turned the focus of their protest against SL Minister Douglas Devananda, who has been a close ally of the Rajapaksa regime. Mr Devananda's EPDP was a former Tamil paramilitary group, operated by the occupying Sinhala military. The families have been irked by the attempts by Devananda to dilute their continues protests that have passed one thousand days this month.
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SL State Intelligence harasses another Tamil activist in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 10 December 2019, 22:43 GMT]
The SL State Intelligence Service (SIS), formerly known as the National Intelligence Bureau (NIB), has been harassing 35-year-old Komahan Murugiah from Punnaalai, Jaffna after he denounced a fake news report regarding the Tamil Political Prisoners (TPPs). A Jaffna-based Tamil Television, Dan TV, alleged of orchestrating false propaganda in favour of SL President Gotabaya Rajapaksa had recently claimed that seven TPPs from Anuradhapura prison had been silently released. On Friday, Mr Komahan openly rejected the fake news and said all the six TPPs detained in Anuradhapura prison were still languishing there. After Komahan exposed the false propaganda, SL SIS officers started to harass him posing questions, rights activists in Jaffna told TamilNet on Tuesday.
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ITAK betrays Tamils once again: Suresh Premachandran

[TamilNet, Sunday, 03 November 2019, 21:25 GMT]
The leading Sinhala presidential candidates have categorically rejected the thirteen-point joint demands, which were articulated by the main six Tamil parties and unanimously accepted in whole by five of them, including the ITAK. Furthermore, it is evident to anyone that the UNP is not going to deliver the constitutional changes. What happened to the constitutional discourse of the same regime during the past four and a half years? The proposals were dumped into the dustbin. How could then the ITAK, which is also a signatory to the joint declaration make a unilateral decision of extending support to Sajith Premadasa, asked EPRLF Leader Suresh Premachandran.
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