SL investigators harass senior journalist in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 01 October 2014, 12:34 GMT]
Senior Journalist and media activist Thayaraparan Ratnam in Jaffna has been subjected to interrogation style investigations by a 'Special Criminal Investigation Division' in Kaangkeasanthu'rai (KKS) on Wednesday, media circles in Jaffna said. Mr Thayaparan has been subjected to continous harassment by Sri Lankan Defence Ministry operated 'investigation' units, Terrorist Investigation Division (TID) and the CID, the sources said adding that the harassments started after the journalists and media activists started to attend media workshops held in Colombo and other places. However, the timing of the harassment against Tamil journalists has a different motive, civil activists in Jaffna told TamilNet.
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PCICMP witnesses in Vanni coerced, threatened by SL military

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 30 September 2014, 19:49 GMT]
Intelligence officers of the occupying Sri Lankan military brought 7 people in their vehicle to witness in front of the Presidential Commission to Investigate into Complaints regarding Missing Persons (PCICMP), which held its sessions in Poonakari on Monday. Two of these witnesses had already appeared in front of the PCICMP at Muzhangkaavil on the previous day. SL soldiers were deployed in civil uniform in large numbers at Poonakari Divisional Secretariat where the session was held. The few witnesses who were present at the site on their own were subjected to strict checking by the SL soldiers. Some of them were sent back by the Sri Lankan soldiers. Those who presented their cases said the Commission was a farce as its members were posing irrelevant questions and were not interested to listen to their complaints of the missing kith and kin.
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Military minds would fail if righteous political wills not respected

[TamilNet, Monday, 29 September 2014, 06:26 GMT]
“India suspicious as Chinese submarine docks in Sri Lanka,” said a headline of a news report in Times of India on Sunday. The report cited New Delhi’s Navy Chief saying that the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) “is our area of operations.” However, the TOI report illustrated the military weakness of India compared to China in budget, armed forces, submarines, warships, fighter jets and tanks, and added that, “insiders fear India’s already stark military asymmetry with China only seems to be expanding all the time.” Military minds and media minds in India fail to see that the foremost of the weaknesses of India in the IOR is not military asymmetry but New Delhi’s loss of credibility with the peoples of the region inside and outside, commented Tamil activists for alternative politics in Eezham.
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1,200 Sinhala families encroached into Batticaloa-Ampaa’rai border

[TamilNet, Sunday, 28 September 2014, 21:36 GMT]
Since 2011, more than 1,200 Sinhala families have been brought into the Batticaloa district within the bordering areas of Ampaa’rai district, say Tamil National Alliance (TNA) politicians who have taken a fact-finding mission to Mayilantha-madu and Periya-maathava’nai on Friday. Thousands of acres of grazing lands allocated for farmers from Batticaloa have been seized by the occupying Sri Lankan military and its so-called ‘homeguards’ paramilitary. The Sinhala colonists are doing agriculture in the occupied lands.
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Timing of Jayalalithaa case targets Dravidian polity

[TamilNet, Saturday, 27 September 2014, 17:10 GMT]
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and AIADMK Chief Ms J Jayalalithaa has been sentenced on Saturday to 4 years of imprisonment, Rs. 100 crore fine and has been debarred from contesting elections for six years after the completion of the prison term by a special court of India, in a 18-year-old disproportionate assets case. Last month, New Delhi’s Central Bureau of Investigation filed a new telecommunication corruption case against a former DMK minister and a Malaysian corporate owner of Eezham Tamil origin, in addition to earlier cases on DMK leaders. The New Delhi government stridently opposes and blocks any UN or international scrutiny on crimes committed in the island of Sri Lanka. Ms Jayalalithaa, personally as well as through Tamil Nadu State Assembly, has been demanding international investigations on the genocide in the island.
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Tamil Nadu condemns Rajapaksa's presence at UN

[TamilNet, Friday, 26 September 2014, 15:41 GMT]
Condemning the presence of genocide-accused Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa at the UN General Assembly, over 20,000 Tamils from Tamil Nadu gathered in Chennai on Wednesday to voice their protest. Over 150 Tamil Nadu based organizations took part in the event. The demonstration saw the participation of political parties, social movements, civil society organizations, youth groups, Muslim and Dalit organizations. The protesters also called on the UN to conduct a referendum for an independent Tamil Eelam. While the protesters in Tamil Nadu were raising their voices against SL president, the Indian Prime Minister is scheduled to have a bi-lateral meeting with SL President in the USA on Saturday. In the meantime, Indian and Pakistani sources ruled out a such bilateral meeting between the presidents of India and Pakistan during their presence in the UK.
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OHCHR fails to recognise de-Tamilisation in ‘Sri Lanka’: Gajendrakumar

[TamilNet, Friday, 26 September 2014, 06:25 GMT]
“Most of the incidents referred to by the oral update are part of a larger pattern aimed at creating the conditions of permanent subjugation of the Tamil people as a whole - a process of de-Tamilisation which we interpret as the structural genocide of the Tamil Nation in Sri Lanka,” said Gajendrakumar addressing the 27th Session of the UNHRC on Thursday in Geneva. “An honest and forthright appreciation of the problems that face the Tamil people is fundamental and we call upon the OHCHR to conduct the inquiry in this spirit,” he told the UNHRC. “We note with concern the oral update’s failure to acknowledge that the Tamil people are being targeted because of their national identity. The fact that religious minorities such as the Muslims and Christians can be mentioned by name for being targets, makes the refusal to mention the Tamils by name all the more disappointing,” he said.
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Tamils denied of observing collective remembrance in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Thursday, 25 September 2014, 16:11 GMT]
Sri Lankan Police in Batticaloa has been harassing the families of the victims of 1990 Puthukkudiyiruppu massacre on Sunday when they gathered to observe the annual memorial event in front of the statue of 17 civilians who were slain by ‘homeguards’ paramilitary operated by the Sri Lankan military in 1990. Tamil Councillor K. Thurairajasingam, who was present at the event with parliamentarians P. Selvarasa and P. Ariyanethiran blames that the SL Police was blocking the peaceful event with a court order from an Acting Magistrate. This is the second incident in recent days where the SL Police, under false charges of ‘causing disturbance to peace’, has blocked the kith and kin of the victims of the past massacres from paying tribute to their slain victims by lighting candles together.
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Tamils complain discrimination in selection of beneficiaries of Indian housing scheme

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 24 September 2014, 21:49 GMT]
A point system introduced to determine the recipients of the Indian housing scheme discriminates the uprooted people of Champoor in Trincomalee district, civil sources in Moothoor East told TamilNet on Wednesday. The recipients are being selected on the basis that their displacement after year 2008 and that they should now be living in temporary huts at the moment in addition to certain points based criteria. The people of Champoor region were uprooted from their native villages in 2006. Most of the potential recipients are being filtered away by this method, the sources said. Further, there is no transparency in the way the points are being assigned. In some cases, government officers are being bribed to assign temporary huts for some applicants to become eligible, the sources further said.
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SL military squads intensify attacks on Tamil journalists in Vanni

[TamilNet, Monday, 22 September 2014, 21:19 GMT]
Sri Lankan military intelligence operatives have intensified attacks on independent Tamil journalists in Vanni in recent days. A 33-year-old reporter from Paranthan, Sinnarasa Siventhiran, who files news stories at Uthayan’s branch office at Karadippoakku junction had a narrow escape from a squad that intended to kill him by throwing him in front of a vehicle on A9 Road Sunday night. Squads operated by the SL military have also assaulted two other reporters in recent days and threatened them not to complain or publish news on the attack.
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UPFA victory in Badulla based on manipulations: Upcountry Tamils

[TamilNet, Sunday, 21 September 2014, 08:51 GMT]
More than 50,000 Up Country Tamils from Badulla and Moneregala districts in Uva Provice were not able to cast their votes in the Provincial Council elections held on Saturday, say Upcountry Tamil activists in Badulla. The narrow victory of UPFA in Badulla district is a manipulated victory, they said. The ruling UPFA of Mahinda Rajapaksa has won the elections in Badulla district polling 11,000 votes more than the opposition UNP.
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Colombo to seize more lands for militarisation of North

[TamilNet, Saturday, 20 September 2014, 22:43 GMT]
1,300 acres of lands are to be surveyed and seized by the SL military in Jaffna peninsula in the coming days, informed sources told TamilNet on Saturday. The lands belonging to Tamil people are to be seized in Maathakal, Achchuveali, Chavakachcheari, Nu’naavil and Thikkam. The SL military has already harassed the fishermen at Cheanthaan-ku’lam in Maathakal to vacate from their jetty and relocate their fishing tools as the land was to be surveyed, gazetted and seized for military expansion. On Friday, Tamil National Alliance (TNA) politicians, civic council members and Valikaamam North uprooted people’s organisation protested against an attempt to survey the lands in Maathakal. In the meantime, hundreds of acres of lands are being seized without any procedures in the Vanni mainland, Tamil activists in Mullaiththeevu said.
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Mass grave found in Veala’nai off Jaffna

[TamilNet, Friday, 19 September 2014, 20:14 GMT]
Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) workers, who dug postholes along the wall of Ooraaththu’rai Civic Council secretariat situated in Veala’nai in the Ooraaththu’rai islet (Kayts) off Jaffna, came across human skeletal remains in all the seven postholes they had dug on Friday. The SL Police has immediately sealed off the site from public access, news sources in Veala’nai said. The residents in Veala’nai alleged that the CEB workers have discovered a mass grave similar to the one that has been recently discovered in Thirukkeatheesvaram in Mannaar.
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SL military begins deceptive recruitment drive in East

[TamilNet, Thursday, 18 September 2014, 21:50 GMT]
Inviting poverty-stricken Tamil families along the district border between the Ampaa’rai district and Batticaloa district to receive ‘humanitarian supplies’, the occupying Sri Lanka Army has been conducting propaganda meetings promising civil jobs for Tamil women in the SL military, news sources in Ampaa’rai told TamilNet on Thursday. A group of Sri Lanka Army soldiers, who brought drinking water supply to the villagers in 35th Colony, Malaiyar-kaddu and Ka’n’naki-puram were campaigning ‘good salary’ and ‘government pension’ for subservient jobs in SL military. In the meantime, the SL military has also gone to the extent of promising a house to each family that sends their daughters and sons for employment in SL military.
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Funeral of veteran activist Manickasothy held in Uduvil, Jaffna

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 17 September 2014, 19:14 GMT]
Hundreds of Eezham Tamils paid their last respects to veteran Eezham Tamil activist Abimannasingham Manickasothy on Wednesday at Uduvil in Jaffna. Mr Manickasothy passed away Monday night in a vehicle accident on his way to Jaffna from Colombo. Mr Manickasothy, who stood with his people throughout the Tamil struggle, has been articulating the political aspiration of Eezham Tamils in all available platforms. He has been a firm defender of Eezham Tamils right to self-determination for more than 30 years.
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Sapu-gas-kanda, Hapu-wala

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 16 September 2014, 19:46 GMT]
The hill of Michelia champaca trees

The forest of Michelia champaca trees
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Eezham Tamils learning languages

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 16 September 2014, 13:38 GMT]
Thanks to the sustained efforts of the Indian Consulate in Jaffna ‘interest in Hindi’ is sprouting among Jaffna Tamils, reports New Indian Express on Tuesday, citing ‘Hindi Diwas’ [Hindi Day] celebrated by the Consulate, 20 students completing a course and one of them telling that “There are now people who think it will be useful to know Hindi if they go to north India for studies or pilgrimage.” Eezham Tamils wish that the Chinese embassy would soon start teaching Mandarin Chinese and the other embassies would follow suit in teaching major European, Latin American, Arabic and other Asian languages, so that the nation of Eezham Tamils could have a wider interaction with the world and with their own kith and kin worldwide, commented Tamil activists for alternative politics in the island.
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Genocidal SL military becomes sole spokesperson of ‘human rights’

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 16 September 2014, 07:02 GMT]
Thanks to Sydney University of Australia, the Sinhala military of Sri Lanka deployed on a genocidal-military experiment in the island by leading powers of the world has emerged as the monopolising force to speak on ‘human rights’ in the Asia Pacific region. At an international conference convened in Bangkok this week by the Sydney University along with Colombo University, invitations to two human rights organisations in the island were withdrawn at the request of the SL military. Further, the conference director had told the other delegates to avoid any confrontation with the SL military officials at the conference. Following, the Amnesty International had pulled out its delegation and there would be others too, The Guardian reported on last Friday.
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SL Navy attacks on Tamil Nadu fishermen escalate

[TamilNet, Monday, 15 September 2014, 06:26 GMT]
Two dead bodies have washed ashore in Jaffna on Friday and Sunday and 59 fishermen from Tamil Nadu have been arrested by the occupying Sri Lanka Navy in Jaffna and Mannaar on Friday. One of the dead fishermen was identified as 40-year-old Gnanapirakasam from Rameswaram from a tattoo that depicted AIDMK's "two leaves" party symbol. The other body washed ashore in Vadamaraadchi Munai on Sunday is yet to be identified.
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SL military deploys intimidation, deception in East to suppress testimonies to OISL

[TamilNet, Sunday, 14 September 2014, 22:17 GMT]
The intelligence operatives of the occupying Sri Lankan military are exploiting the poverty-stricken Tamil youth from the temporary settlements of uprooted people from Champoor to spy on the activities going on among the uprooted people. The SL military, which has been providing alcohol and other drugs to the youth, have converted some of the young Tamils deprived of education and other facilities to work as spies for them. Former LTTE members have been two choices. They can either choose work for the SL military or face harassment from the SL military, the representatives of uprooted people in Ki’liveddi and Kaddai-pa’richchaan camps in Trincomalee told TamilNet.
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