Indian police remedy against rape is ‘reconciliation’

[TamilNet, Friday, 28 December 2012, 08:12 GMT]
A 17-year-old Indian girl, gang-raped in November, committed suicide on Wednesday, after the Indian police pressured her to drop the case and accept a cash settlement or ‘marry’ one of her attackers, AFP reported on Thursday citing the victim’s sister, a senior police official and the Indian media NDTV. The girl had been “running from pillar to post to get her case registered,” but officers failed to open a formal inquiry and tried to convince her to withdraw the case, the Inspector General of Punjab Police, P.S. Gill, conceded. What the Indian police had applied in the individual case of the hapless girl is just analogous to the larger political policy of ‘reconciliation’ imposed by the Establishments in New Delhi and Washington on the genocide-affected nation of Eezham Tamils, said an activist in Jaffna standing for the human rights of nations.
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Schalk tells Tamil politicians to claim territory of Tamil Buddhists

[TamilNet, Friday, 28 December 2012, 07:37 GMT]
“The real danger for the Tamil speaking community is the traditional bond between Sinhala Buddhism and its claims to the whole territory of the island. Now we understand why the historical existence of Tamil Buddhism is denied: it is apprehended as a dangerous counter-movement to the Sinhala Buddhists’ claims of territory. Tamil politicians are expected to reject the territorial claims of Sinhala Buddhists by referring to the historical existence of territories settled by Buddhists who were Tamil speakers with their own claims for territorial control,” writes Emeritus Professor Peter Schalk in sending a note, responding to TamilNet feature “Simulated Buddhists, Sinhala-Buddhist schools to accelerate colonization, genocide,” appeared on 19 December.
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Takasu, Tamils' adversary in UN Security Council?

[TamilNet, Friday, 28 December 2012, 00:15 GMT]
Yukio Takasu, the 2009 President of the UN Security Council (UNSC) on the critical month of February, was one of the key UN officials who allegedly prevented Sri Lanka from being dragged into the UNSC for the unfolding mass scale killings in Mu'l'livaaykkaal, public statements made by UN officials during media stakes reveal. While some UN Security Council (UNSC) permanent members may have agreed with Takasu'a views, in a media stake out, Takasu lays out his "own" critical view of the "terrorist LTTE," and the primacy of political and security need to "defeat" the Tigers over imminent large scale civilian casualties. Political observers believe that Japanese cultural views on refugees, asylum seekers may provide clues to Takasu's approach and conduct in the UNSC that led to the disastrous outcome for the Tamil refugees trapped in Sri Lanka's civil war.
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The Palestinian long road to statehood insufficient for Tamil Sovereignty

[TamilNet, Thursday, 27 December 2012, 06:55 GMT]
Twenty-four long years after the Palestine Liberation Organization renounced violence and voted to create the State of Palestine, United Nations recognition of Palestine remains limited to “non-member, observer” status. Governing an international order premised on the military superiority and economic interests of powerful states, the United Nations has been proved structurally incapable of defending oppressed nations. That the developments in the Palestinian movement should elicit interest from Eezham Tamil activists is the opinion of Tamil political observers who have been following the Palestinian struggle, who further contend that the time the Palestinians had in reaching to the current position is not an asset in the case of the Eezham Tamils who face an internationally ignored structural, protracted genocide in their homeland.
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Systemic disappearances qualify as crimes against humanity in ICC, says Boyle

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 26 December 2012, 22:46 GMT]
The enforced disappearances of human beings that are widespread and systematic, such as the abductions of Tamils in the NorthEast including the midnight abduction of 28-year-old Mrs Soundararajan Sivamalar in Uduvil, Jaffna, on Christmas eve by Sri Lanka's Terrorism Division, are a Crime against Humanity under the Rome Statute for the International Criminal Court (ICC), Professor Boyle of the University of Illinois College of Law said. "So if Gotobhaya travels to an ICC Member State, it might be possible to get him prosecuted in the visiting country under its domestic implementing legislation for the Rome Statute," Boyle said.
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Sri Lanka’s terror abductions, arrests, summons mark Christmas Eve in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 25 December 2012, 22:43 GMT]
28-year-old Mrs Soundararajan Sivamalar, wife of an LTTE member killed in the war, and presently working at SL government’s Uduvil divisional secretariat, was abducted at midnight at her house recently. Sri Lanka’s Terrorist Investigation Department (TID) now informally acknowledged to the SL Human Rights Commission office in Jaffna that the ‘arrest’ was their act. Complaints of such abductions and ‘arrests’ of around 45 people have been registered in recent days at the SL human rights office in Jaffna, officials acknowledged on Monday. Many more abductions and arrests in the north have gone unregistered as the family members have been sternly warned by the occupying SL forces, not to register complaints at the SL human rights office. Meanwhile, many girl students of the Jaffna University have been ‘summoned’ over telephone by the TID in Vavuniyaa.
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Tamils in Paris, London protest France's inaction in Tamil activist's assassination

[TamilNet, Sunday, 23 December 2012, 19:19 GMT]
Eezham Tamils in France and UK demonstrated at the capital cities of the two countries on Friday, condemning the French government’s lack of interest in bringing to justice the culprits behind the assassination of grassroots activist Nadarajah Mathinthiran alias Parithi. The demonstration in Paris being joined by hundreds of Eezham Tamils in France, also witnessed the participation of several solidarity activists, including members of the Kurdish diaspora. The protestors in the two countries were aghast at the absence of any action from the French government’s side, with many wondering whether the French authorities were colluding with the Sri Lankan intelligence, sources from London and Paris told TamilNet.
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100,000 remain internally displaced, says UNHCR

[TamilNet, Sunday, 23 December 2012, 18:46 GMT]
In a report on the international protection needs of asylum seekers from Sri Lanka, UNHCR identifies several risk profiles including persons suspected of links with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), journalists, human rights activists, witnesses to rights violations, and vulnerable children and women, and notes while "there is an ethnic dimension to their vulnerability," in each of these risk groups, "members of the minority Tamil and, to a lesser extent, Muslim communities are reportedly more often subjected to arbitrary detention, abductions or enforced disappearances." Tamil activists including the New Zealand Tamil Action Front was consistently canvassing for this and there was a response in this regard from the Australian representative of the UNHCR in a regional meeting held at Auckland on 19 November.
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Tamil youth protest in London condemns repression of students in Jaffna, urges UK to act

[TamilNet, Saturday, 22 December 2012, 14:38 GMT]
In a protest march in London from Temple Station to 10 Downing Street on Saturday, Eezham Tamil youth in the UK condemned the harassment of the Jaffna University students and faculty by the occupying military and demanded the immediate release of the students arrested by Sri Lanka’s TID. Raising slogans urging the British government to take action, the protestors also called for an end to the occupation of the Tamil homeland. "The UK government and the co-chairs have a moral and political responsibility in what has been happening to the Eelam Tamils after 2009. It is clear from the brutal repression of the students of Jaffna University, that reconciliation in unitary Sri Lanka means denial of basic civil liberties of the Tamil Nation. This is an aspect of genocide and the UK government should immediately respond to this," Bairavi Ratnabal from TYO-UK told TamilNet.
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SL military begins war on Jaffna University teachers

[TamilNet, Saturday, 22 December 2012, 09:37 GMT]
The telephone summoning of the Jaffna University Teachers’ Association (JUTA) president and head of English language teaching at the university, A Rajakumaran, to the Terrorist Investigation Department (TID) of occupying Sri Lanka on Friday is widely seen in the university circles as the beginning of a direct war on the Tamil university teachers by the occupying State. Rajakumaran is summoned in connection with his media statement, especially to the BBC, on the student protest in the university and in connection with his reported comments on the views that in future the teachers’ union and the students’ union should jointly observe the Heroes Day as a measure against situations such as the one unfolded this year.
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Deans foil SL military attempt to direct Jaffna University

[TamilNet, Thursday, 20 December 2012, 01:53 GMT]
The commander of the occupying Sinhala military in Jaffna, Maj. Gen. Mahinda Hathurusinghe now ventures to directly order the academics and to run the University of Jaffna from his military base at Palaali, news sources in Jaffna said, citing his call to the deans of the faculties to meet him at Palaali on Wednesday to talk to them on resuming classes at the university. All the faculty deans in unison rejected the call and told the Vice Chancellor that it amounts to militarisation of education. Meanwhile, the talks between the Student Council and the Vice Chancellor of the university on Wednesday failed as the students have categorically conveyed their decision of not attending to classes until all the student leaders detained by the SL military are released.
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Simulated Buddhists, Sinhala-Buddhist schools to accelerate colonisation, genocide

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 19 December 2012, 05:19 GMT]
Following the construction of Buddhist stupas with the deployment of ‘Army and Archaeology’ where there were no practising Buddhists at all, the genocidal Sri Lankan state occupying the country of Eezham Tamils is now bent upon creating a Buddhist population in the North by the conversions and simulations of a ‘Tamil Buddhist’ community and by the construction of Sinhala-Buddhist schools to attract and facilitate a colonising community from the South. Already achieving the demographic genocide in the East and in the Northwest over the last several decades, the idea of the Sinhala-Buddhist state now is to fully use the ‘once in a millennium opportunity’ provided by militarisation and ICE-abetment, to irrevocably complete the annihilation of the territoriality of the nation of Eezham Tamils, as envisaged by the LLRC blueprint.
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Holmes, UN's smokescreen to Mu'l'livaaykkaal killings?

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 19 December 2012, 02:16 GMT]
Public statements made by UN officials during media stakeouts and briefings, Wikileaks exposures, and the testimony of twelve UN field staff reported earlier in TamilNet provide a blue-print to the strategy adopted by the UN to allow Sri Lanka to defeat the Tigers, and to ignore the mounting numbers of civilian casualties. This feature catalogues the statements from UN's former humanitarian chief, John Holmes, as he attempts to provide diplomatic cover to the slaughter taking place in Mu'l'livaaykkaal, repeatedly relying on Colombo's assurances on not using heavy weapons, and hesitating to provide casualty figures, a conduct comport with the "internal" strategy revealed by the then President of the United Nations Security Council, Yukio Takasu, that gave primacy to the need to eliminate the “terrorist LTTE …which had broken several ceasefire agreements."
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Sampanthan countered, TELO calls for complete exit of occupying forces

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 18 December 2012, 22:36 GMT]
The Sri Lanka military, including its three forces that spearheaded the genocide of Tamils by the Sri Lankan state is viewed by Tamils as a Sinhala military and as an occupation military. The wish of the Tamil people is that such a military should quit completely, said a press release of the Tamil Eelam Liberation Organization (TELO), signed by its political head and former TNA parliamentarian, M.K. Shivajilingam, on Monday. TELO is a constituent party in the Tamil National Alliance (TNA). The press release saying that such a statement on the stand of the TELO became a necessity in the context of current debates on the issue in the Tamil political circles, hinted against a recent statement by TNA leader R. Sampanthan that he was not calling for the complete withdrawal of the SL military.
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Tamil Nadu protest calls for investigation on 3 UN officials for complicity in Tamil genocide

[TamilNet, Monday, 17 December 2012, 01:47 GMT]
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, former UN Chief of Staff Vijay Nambiar and former UN Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian affairs Sir John Holmes were in complicity in the genocidal onslaught on Eezham Tamils by Sri Lanka in 2009, declared a protest held by political activists and grassroot movements in Tamil Nadu on Sunday. May 17 Movement, the organisers of the protest, citing the recent report of the Internal Review Panel on UN Action in Sri Lanka led by Charles Petrie, accused the ‘axis of the UN trio’ for shielding the Sri Lankan government during the peak of its genocidal onslaught on the Eezham Tamil nation. The demonstrators, who blamed the UN for denying justice to the victims after the genocidal war, also accused the UN for having failed to provide a just political solution to the national question of Eezham Tamils.
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Colombo punishes Tamil officials with transfer for opposing Sinhala encroachment

[TamilNet, Sunday, 16 December 2012, 16:47 GMT]
Tamil civil servants, who take legal action against Sri Lankan State and military run Sinhala encroachment of lands belonging to Tamils in the Batticaloa district, are under threat of transfer by the Colombo government, civil sources in Batticaloa said. Recently, the Divisional Secretary of Koa'raippattu South, Mr M. Thavarasa, who filed cases against illegal encroachers in Vadamunai, Oottuch-cheanai and Kallichchai, is to be transferred from January next year by the Colombo government.
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Kurdish grassroot federation in Germany shows solidarity with Jaffna University students

[TamilNet, Sunday, 16 December 2012, 12:18 GMT]
YEK-KOM, a German based federation of numerous Kurdish organizations, condemned the genocidal policies of the Sri Lankan government and the repression of the Eezham Tamil students in Jaffna, conveying its solidarity with the protesting students in the Tamil homeland. In a statement in German released on Friday, it said “The oppressed Tamil people for over 60 years have been facing the extinction of their culture, language, religion and homeland. Overlooking this oppression means active support to the decades of genocide of the Tamils.” The statement further urged “the international humanitarian and democratic forces to collectively voice and demonstrate their support with the demands of the Tamil people in solidarity.”
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Chain of protests in London against repression of students in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Saturday, 15 December 2012, 11:07 GMT]
A series of protests have been organized outside the British Prime Minister’s Office in 10 Downing Street, London since Monday to condemn the repression of the Jaffna University students by the occupying Sinhala military. Condemning the arrests and detentions of the students and the Sinhala military’s systematic assaults on the civil rights of the Eezham Tamils as a part of the genocide of the Tamil nation, the protestors urged UK and the International Community to ensure the immediate release of the arrested students and to safeguard the democratic rights of the Eezham Tamil nation in the island.
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HR Day event in Toronto brings Tamils closer to global progressive networks

[TamilNet, Friday, 14 December 2012, 00:03 GMT]
More than twenty social, economic, and environmental justice groups in Canada that joined together in Toronto on the eve of International Human Rights Day to forge a common forum against military occupation, apartheid, genocide and political imprisonment, have voiced against the SL military detention of the students of the University of Jaffna. The event gains significance as the recently formed Coalition for Tamil Rights was invited to represent the perspectives of Eezham Tamils along with other progressive forces. On the occasion of the event, activists of socio-political organizations in Canada condemned the arrests and detentions of Tamil students of the University of Jaffna in the SL military occupied country of Eezham Tamils. The activists demanded immediate release of the students and called for an end to the Sri Lankan military occupation of the Tamil homeland.
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SLA summons 4 girl students, house-by-house intimidation to resume university

[TamilNet, Thursday, 13 December 2012, 20:31 GMT]
The occupying genocidal military of Sri Lanka now engages in entering each and every house of the Jaffna University students to individually intimidate them to drop the protest and to return to the university or face dire consequences. The Vice Chancellor Prof Vasanthi Arasaratnam installed by colonial Colombo, most of the council members appointed by the regime or planted by collaborating paramilitary and some external intelligence agencies, and the threatened Deans are forced to connive with the new paradigm of occupying military running the university, news sources in Jaffna said. Meanwhile, in addition to the key student leaders of the university detained for ‘rehabilitation,’ the SL military has freshly demanded the submission of four girl students by their parents.
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