SL Police harasses Sinhala writer after articles on marauding Sinhala-Buddhist violence

[TamilNet, Monday, 17 June 2019, 19:04 GMT]
The Organised Crimes Prevention Division (OCPD) of the SL Police in Colombo is harassing veteran journalist Kusal Perera, a Sinhala political essayist, who has been writing about the escalating anti-Muslim Sinhala-Buddhist extremism after the Easter Sunday attacks. The Free Media Movement (FMM) in Colombo said that the SL Police was attempting to record a statement from the editors of Colombo-based English newspaper Daily Mirror on Friday. The SL Police was trying to convince the Colombo Magistrate Courts to detain and investigate the journalist under the provisions of the so-called ‘International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights’ (ICCPR) Act No 56 of 2007. The FMM said that the latest move by the SL Police was setting “dangerous precedent” as it was a serious threat to the freedom of expression and media and the pursuance of legal action under the ICCPR Act.
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Militant monk warns Tamils not to challenge ‘foremost’ stake of Sinhala Buddhism

[TamilNet, Sunday, 16 June 2019, 21:39 GMT]
Sinhala extremist militant monk Ven Bengamuwe Nalaka Thero, the chief organiser of so-called ‘National Rights Movement,’ was visiting the disputed heritage site, Neeraaviyadi in Chemmalai-East, Naayaa'ru, in the district of Mullaith-theeevu on Sunday. He was taking hardline Sinhala protesters in three buses from Colombo, Anuradhapura and the Sinhala colony of Janakapura at Weli-Oya (Ma'nal-aa'ru) in Mullaiththeevu to stage a protest against the removal of the Sinhala name board of the illegally constructed Buddhist temple at the disputed heritage site. Nalaka Thero, along with a couple of other speakers, issued a stern warning to the Tamils that they better dare not to challenge the heritage genocide being waged by the Sinhala Theravada Buddhist establishment and the SL ‘Army and Archaeology’.
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Mano Ganesan misleads on Kanniyaa heritage dispute: Trincomalee Councillor

[TamilNet, Friday, 14 June 2019, 18:48 GMT]
SL Minister of Hindu Religious Affairs and ‘National’ Integration, Mr Mano Ganesan, was appreciated by Tamils in Trincomalee for confronting the Sinhala Buddhist monks regarding the ancient Tamil heritage of Kanniyaa during his recent trip attending the District Coordinating Committee meeting, on Monday. However, the monks were unmoved. They categorically told Mr Ganesan and the TNA Parliamentarian C. Yogeswaran that it was the Sinhala Buddhist Establishment and no one else in the island – not even the Executive President or the Prime Minister– who had the power to determine the fate of the heritage affairs of Kanniyaa. The minister could very well proceed taking up the issue with Maithiripala Sirisena or Ranil Wickramasinghe in Colombo, but it would not change the ground reality, was the message, says Piratheasa Chapai (PS) councillor Chandirarajah Vipooshan, who was at the meeting.
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SL military targets Tamil grassroots activists in Mullaiththeevu, GS officer receives death threat

[TamilNet, Thursday, 13 June 2019, 22:45 GMT]
The occupying Colombo’s Army in Mullaiththeevu has issued death threat to an Eezham Tamil Village Officer (GS), K. Bede Jeyaharan on 06 May, a couple of days before SL President Maithiripala Sirisena visited Mullaiththeevu promoting Sinhala colonisation of the region. The GS officer said he was able to recognise the offenders as SLA soldiers, although they were wearing tinted glasses and were covering their faces with black clothes. The incident took place at Va'n'naag-ku'lam where the SLA soldiers, conducting a cordon and search operation, stopped the GS who was on his way to give tuition at a private education centre. As the masked soldiers turned him away from reaching the institution, a captain rank SLA officer arrived at the site and issued the death threat, the GS has complained to the SL Human Rights Commission office in Vavuniyaa.
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SL State-run Timber Corporation escalates logging of teak trees in Vanni

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 12 June 2019, 22:47 GMT]
The SL State-owned Timber Corporation (STC) which comes under the SL Mahaweli Development and Environment Ministry, which is led by SL President Maithiripala Sirisena, has been engaged in wide-scale felling of Theakku trees (teak, Tectona grandis) in Oddu-chuddaan area in Mullaiththeevu. The occupying SL military, empowered with police powers under the Emergency Regulations, has been prohibiting Tamil journalists from entering the area to monitor and report on the anti-environment activity which has been stepped up after the visit of Mr Sirisena to Mullaiththeevu on 08 May. The teak trees being cut down are carried out by an all Sinhala team of workers from the South. The trees were planted by the Tamil Eelam Forest Conservation Unit of the Liberation Tigers and the Tamil Eelam Economic Development Organisation (TEEDOR) during the de-facto administration of Tamil Eelam before 2009.
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Occupying Colombo schemes Sinhala Buddhist settlement in Chemmalai-East, Vanni

[TamilNet, Monday, 10 June 2019, 21:30 GMT]
The controversial erection of the giant Buddha statue at Neeraaviyadi in Chemmalai-East of Mullaiththeevu district is to be further expanded into a Buddhist enclave encapsulating 33,376 hectares of land area to the southeast of Naayaa'ru lagoon, reveals a poster put up by Ven Kolamba Medhalankara Thero, the ‘chief incumbent’ of the so-called Gurukanda Purana Rajamaha Vihara at the disputed heritage site. The monk is groomed by the occupying Sinhala Army's 593 Brigade, which is having its headquarter-base at Naayaa'aru. Scheming a large hermitage under the name of Gurukanda Purana Raja Maha Vihara (Gurukanda PRMV), the SL Archaeology Department, the SL Ministry of Buddha Sasana and the SL Ministry of Mahaweli ‘Development and Environment’ are backing the scheme, informed sources in Mullaiththeevu said.
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Kokku'laay-centric united action needed to counter Colombo wedging North-East

[TamilNet, Saturday, 08 June 2019, 20:36 GMT]
The resettled Tamil residents of the strategic Thennai-maravadi village bordering the Northern and Eastern Provinces in the Trincomalee district are facing Sinhala colonisation and Sinhala Buddhicisation of Tamil heritage sites on two fronts, at Pa'nikka-vayal to its west and at Kanthasaami-malai, which extends eastwards into Kokku'laay lagoon. The Sinhala colonisation and the Buddhicisation of Tamil heritage site of Kanthasaami-malai are being accelerated under the Emergency Regulations and the situation prevailing after the Easter Sunday attacks that have triggered the extremist monks to escalate their chauvinistic schemes in the occupied country of Eezham Tamils. The two-pronged attack, which is being stepped up in the recent days, is part of a larger design of permanently wedging the territorial contiguity of the Tamil homeland along the narrow border between the North and the East.
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Tamils, Muslims need strategic alliance to protect heritage rights in North-East

[TamilNet, Friday, 07 June 2019, 17:16 GMT]
The Tamil Saiva Priest of Then-Kayilai Aatheenam, Thavath-Thiru Akaththiyar Adika’ laar, has urged legal activists to find ways to contain the hostile acts of the Sinhala Buddhist monk from the Velgam Vihara, who has dismantled the foundation of Hindu Pi’l’ laiyaar temple at the heritage site of Kanniyaa hot springs in Trincomalee. The Saiva priest said it was not merely a religious dispute, but rather a cause of preserving the heritage rights. The best option, in his opinion, was to address the issue through the courts. In the meantime, TNA Leader R. Sampanthan was taking up the burning question with the SL President and the Prime Minister. However, both the legal avenue and the political appeals made with collaborative orientation only have minimal impact in the unitary system of genocidal Sri Lanka, especially under the Emergency Regulations, commented legal activists in Trincomalee.
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Sinhala Buddhist fundamentalism ultimate trump card in unitary ‘Sri Lanka’: Suresh

[TamilNet, Thursday, 06 June 2019, 19:18 GMT]
The successive SL governments continue to behave hostile towards the Tamil people through ‘celebrating’ victory in the month of May. Furthermore, the SL State and its military sustain the Sinhala Buddhist fundamentalism unabatedly erecting Buddhist temples in the North and the East. The same trend is also witnessed in the way the Islamophobia is deployed in the electoral politics of the South, particularly after the Easter Sunday attacks, commented Tamil politician Suresh Premachandran in a video interview to TamilNet this week. The SL Army’s 11-day ‘Walk of Warriors’ launched from Medawachchiya to Colombo coinciding with the May’ victory celebration’ seems to be a display of warning to the Muslim people as well as being propaganda targeting the Sinhala people with the message that the military force is their ultimate protection, the former Tamil militant turned politician observed.
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IC failing to impose mediated solution, ultimately responsible for escalating Sinhala chauvinism

[TamilNet, Friday, 31 May 2019, 22:11 GMT]
Even though one feared the outbreak of an anti-Muslim pogrom immediately after the Easter attacks, silence prevailed for two weeks. Then the mob violence targeted the properties of Muslim traders. It was not an act of immediate responsive impulse, but an engineered move instigated by an organised force. Despite their differences in the scale, there are certain similarities between the 1983 Black July anti-Tamil pogrom and the post-2009 anti-Muslim pogroms, says Batticaloa-based human rights activist Kathir Barathythasan. During the war, the International Community (IC) was acting as a mediator. But, it was also abetting the SL State, causing massive civilian deaths. The IC, now wants the anti-terror legislation to fit its global designs ignoring the drastic internal consequences. The IC must, therefore, be convinced to deliver a negotiated settlement to the national question, he said.
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SL police, backing monk, commit hate-crimes against Tamils, says assaulted journalist

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 29 May 2019, 21:28 GMT]
Two officers-in-charge (OICs) of the stations of Kokku’laay and Mullaith-theevu of the occupying SL police in Vanni, verbally abused a Tamil journalist, K. Kumanan, on Monday, a day after he reported their biased conduct against the Tamil Saiva devotees, who had gone to reinstate the name board at the disputed heritage site of Neeraaviyadi in Naayaa’ru. The OIC of Kokku’laay went a step further physically slapping the journalist at his neck as well as deliberately shaking his camera. The SL Police was also intimidating Kumanan by taking photos. “The police officers were not only attacking me, but they were also verbally abusing the entire Tamil media in a collective sense,” said the freelance reporter. The assault came a day after his report appeared in the Veerakesari daily.
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Colonising Sinhala Buddhist monks, officials provoke Saiva Tamils in Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 28 May 2019, 18:04 GMT]
A group of encroaching Sinhala Theravada Buddhist monks, who had illegally built a Buddhist shrine in 2013 near the Saiva (Hindu) shrine of Kanniyaa hot wells in the traditional Tamil division of Uppu-ve’ li in the Trincomalee district, have recently started to dismantle the remaining foundation-structure of the Saiva Pi’l’ laiyaar temple. The Saiva temple was destroyed during the anti-Tamil pogroms, and the occupying Colombo establishment has been blocking the Tamil landowner from reconstructing the temple. After dismantling the square-shaped foundation of the Saiva temple, the occupying Sinhala monks started to lay a circular foundation at the locality on 21 May. The controversial move has drawn strong objections from the Tamils, including the owner of the lands, Ms Ganesh Kokilaramani, triggering religious tensions between the intruding Sinhalese and the native Tamils since 22 May.
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Muslim prisoner alleged of LTTE gets back-to-back life sentence in genocidal Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Monday, 27 May 2019, 09:09 GMT]
Anuradhapura’ Special High Court’ of the unitary state of genocidal Sri Lanka has served three jail terms, 20 years each, to be followed one after the other for the first three indictments and a life sentence for the remaining 29 charges to a Tamil-speaking Muslim political prisoner on Tuesday last week. The accused, 45-year-old Abdul Hameed Umar Hattaaph, was the second accused in the case regarding the assassination of a notorious Sinhala military commander, Major General (retd) Janaka Perera in October 2008. Umar Hattaaph had pleaded not guilty. He has been languishing in SL prisons for the past ten years. There was no lawyer prepared to defend him. Umar Hattaap is a father of three and hails from Neariya-ku’lam, Maangku’lam, Vavuniyaa.
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Profound experience of attending Tamil Genocide Remembrance in Vanni: Bremen Tribunal Judge

[TamilNet, Saturday, 25 May 2019, 18:06 GMT]
Colombian theologist Rev Fr Javier Giraldo Moreno was visiting the island this month taking part in the tenth Tamil Genocide Remembrance event, which was held at Mu'l'livaaykkaal in Vanni on 18 May. Fr Javier Giraldo was one of the eleven judges of the Permanent Peoples Tribunal (PPT) which found the unitary state of Sri Lanka guilty of the crime of genocide in the hearings held in Bremen, Germany in January 2014. Before leaving the island, Fr Giraldo addressed journalists at a press conference held at Jaffna Press Club on 20 May, and he was responding to four specific questions. Re-examining Norway-facilitated 2002 peace process was necessary to advance the struggle for the rights of the Tamils, he said. Furthermore, the leaders of all religions should get together to counter the divide-and-rule tactics of the SL government, especially after the Easter attacks, the Catholic priest said.
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Tamil Genocide Remembrance marked in geostrategic Pacific islands of Okinawa, Jeju

[TamilNet, Friday, 24 May 2019, 17:26 GMT]
The people of the Island of Okinawa, located between Japan and Taiwan in the East China Sea of the Pacific, marked the tenth Tamil Genocide Remembrance in two separate events reflecting their resistance to the protracted geopolitical militarisation of the islands in the Indo-Pacific. In 1945, almost one hundred thousand civilians along with an equal number of Imperial Japanese Army soldiers and 12,000 US military personnel perished as the USA went on capturing Japan’s southernmost island in one of the bloodiest amphibious invasions in the modern history. Around 30,000 US troops are now stationed there with a changed focus towards China. The grassroots movement among the Okinawan population is strongly opposed to their island being continuously militarised. Mu’l’ li-vaaykkaal Remembrance events were also held in Kyoto, Japan, and on the strategic Jeju island off the Korean peninsula.
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Wigneswaran writes to Guterres: Urgent need for UN Monitoring Mission to North-East

[TamilNet, Thursday, 23 May 2019, 22:33 GMT]
Former Chief Minister of Northern Provincial Council Justice CV Wigneswaran has written to UN General Secretary Antonio Guterres urging the latter to appoint a United Nations Monitoring Mission to record ongoing human rights violations in the North-East. The SL military has put up ten checkpoints between the Tamil-dominated areas of Vavuniyaa and Jaffna, and these checkpoints have become sites of countless human rights violations, mainly targeted harassment of Tamil women and arbitrary detentions, Justice Wigneswaran said in his letter sent to UN offices on Mu'l'li-vaaykkaal Tamil Genocide Remembrance Day.
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Sikhs, expatriate Indian Tamils mark May 18 questioning role of Norway, USA

[TamilNet, Monday, 20 May 2019, 23:03 GMT]
The expatriate Indian Tamils from Tamil Nadu living in Scandinavia took part in the 10th Mu'l'livaaykkaal Genocide Remembrance event organised by Eezham Tamils in Oslo, the capital of Norway. They also staged a separate marking on their own at Gustaf Adolf's square in the city of Gothenburg in Sweden on 20th May. In the meantime, expatriate Tamil Nadu Tamils living in the USA staged remembrance events at 20 different places on 18th May, criticising the US abetment of genocidal Sri Lanka, both before and after the 2009 onslaught. The role of the expatriate Tamil Nadu Tamils in marking the tenth remembrance gains more significance than the hundreds of emotional events marked by the Eezham Tamil diaspora in the North-America, Europe and elsewhere with massive participation, said Tamil diaspora activists, who also appreciated the way a Sikh editor marked his remembrance to the same effect.
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May 18 declared as Awakening Day of Tamil Nation against Genocide

[TamilNet, Saturday, 18 May 2019, 10:27 GMT]
The grassroots groups which came together from the North and East to organise the 10th Remembrance Day commemorating the deaths of tens of thousands of lives in the Tamil genocide declared the day as the Awakening Day of Tamil Nation against Genocide at Mu'l'livaaykkaal. The occupying military of genocidal Sri Lanka had put up several, and a particular military unit that had from Colombo was visiting door-to-door in Mullaiththeevu warning the people against taking part in the event. However, the remembrance event proceeded with people who had come from other towns. The event was peaceful and emotional. The statement issued by the organisers called for the international investigations and to recognise the distinct sovereignty and inalienable right of self-determination of Tamils in the merged North-East.
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Kalaikkoan's premonition proved right, Tamils cannot shy away from international struggle

[TamilNet, Friday, 17 May 2019, 23:41 GMT]
The chauvinist elements in the South which were behind the State-sponsored anti-Tamil pogrom in 1958 also chose to warn the Muslims and the Burghers that they would be the next targets in the aftermath. Many Tamils were chased out from South to Jaffna and Batticaloa, But they would be eradicated from there as well, in the future, through Sinhala militarisation, the warning claimed. Fifty years later, Colombo and the powers abetting its war, would be achieving that if the war was allowed to proceed the course it was taking, warned Kalaikkoan master, the head of LTTE's Navam Academy, in 2009. The 36-year-old student of history, who had almost lost sight in both of his eyes was an articulate teacher. He was subjected to enforced disappearance at the hands of the SL military on 17 May 2009. TamilNet releases the unedited audio of the Satellite phone communication with him from 13 April 2009.
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Emergency used to target peaceful Tamil activists at Keappaa-pulavu in Vanni

[TamilNet, Friday, 17 May 2019, 09:49 GMT]
The SL Military and the Police were allowing the Sinhala colonists to lay siege to the District Secretariat in Mullaiththeevu on Monday. However, they were harassing four Tamil protesters, who met a small group of foreign journalists at Keappaa-pulavu in Vanni on the same day. “The checkpoint was not there when we started the meeting. However, after 25 minutes, the checkpoint was hurriedly put up near the protest site and the four of us, as well as the journalists talking to us, were thoroughly checked at the post. The SL military knows us very well as we have been staging the protest along the street near the military camp for 807 days,” Chandraleela Simidkasan, a leader of protesting Tamil women at Keappaa-pulavu said on Tuesday.
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