British Court finds Sri Lanka torture allegations credible, stays deportation

[TamilNet, Thursday, 31 May 2012, 23:29 GMT]
British High Court of Justice, Administrative Court Judge, Mr Justice Eady, noting "[t]he recent Human Rights Watch report, dated 29.05.2012 suggests that there may be new evidence relevant to the risk of ill treatment," overturned the removal order on about 40 failed Tamil asylum seekers, in a dramatic last-minute order hailed by rights groups and attorneys representing to-be-deportees as a landmark decision in UK. "Judicial attitudes have changed," and "previously hard-line judges are granting stays, mostly on grounds of risk upon return," said Barristor Paramjothy from a London-based legal institution.
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Uprooted Tamils live with UXO threat, UN agencies silent on demographic ‘conquest’

[TamilNet, Thursday, 31 May 2012, 04:30 GMT]
Uprooted Eezham Tamils from the coastal villages of Mullaiththeevu district, denied resettlement in their own lands and forced to ‘resettle’ in Koampaavil resettlement-scheme, away from the radars of international media and human rights activists, have been abandoned without proper humanitarian assistance. Meanwhile, the families, clearing lands have been confronted with unexploded ordnance in the area that has been declared by UN agencies as clear of landmines. Last Sunday, 37-year-old Manoranjitham Asokkumar, a mother of three children, sustained serious injuries while clearing her plot of land. Local humanitarian workers, who gave photographs to TamilNet, alleged that the UN agencies had failed to even highlight the plight of the civilians who face the threat of landmines in the area, which the agencies have earlier verified as clear of landmines.
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HRW urges UK to suspend deportation of Tamils

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 29 May 2012, 23:32 GMT]
The United Kingdom should immediately suspend deportations of ethnic Tamil asylum seekers to Sri Lanka and review its policies in assessing these claims, Human Rights Watch said on Tuesday. The next scheduled deportation of Tamils from the United Kingdom to Colombo is due to take place on May 31, 2012.
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Muslim journalist assaulted for expressing solidarity with Mannaar Bishop

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 29 May 2012, 15:35 GMT]
An official employed by the Sri Lankan Minister of Industries and Trade, Rishard Badurdeen, on Monday assaulted a 72-year-old Muslim journalist, MA Cader, for having taken part in a prayer expressing solidarity with Mannaar Bishop on Sunday with thousands of civilians of all walks of life in Mannaar. The SL Minister Badurdeen had issued veiled threats against Mannaar Bishop during a speech in the SL Parliament recently. The SL minister's threat against the Bishop comes in the wake of Colombo's harassment against the Bishop, who boldly brought out the fact that 146,679 people had gone unaccounted for in the last stages of Vanni war.
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All are Sinhalese, Tamils have no territorial right: Gotabhaya

[TamilNet, Monday, 28 May 2012, 16:28 GMT]
“Earlier before the war all were Sinhalese,” in Sri Lanka. It is not appropriate to view the north of the country, over which a separatist war was fought, as a predominantly Tamil area, SL presidential sibling and defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa was cited saying by the BBC News that interviewed him in Colombo. Commenting, a political analyst in the island said: The Rajapaksa regime, including its former military commander Sarath Fonseka, has been repeatedly reflecting only the pathological aspiration of the Sinhala nation to make State exclusive for it in the island. India and the USA unnecessarily blight it, rather than conceding to the innate reality of allowing the Sinhala nation to have its trouble-free State by separating the country of Eezham Tamils.
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International Community answerable, say Jaffna University students

[TamilNet, Sunday, 27 May 2012, 01:20 GMT]
In the absence of no action to the attack on the student leader aiming at denial of ‘right to memory’ of the Tamil student community, the ultimate responsibility goes with the international community that has unleashed and upholds such a militarized setup against Tamils, commented boycotting students of the University of Jaffna who have decided to attend classes from Monday, after a closed-door meeting with the occupying Sinhala Commander for which the student representatives were taken under threat of ‘dire consequences’. In a statement released on Friday the student’s union has asked the question that the international community has to answer what is the point in the Geneva resolution and the LLRC report. Tamil politicians should realize the futility of participating the delay tactics by which Colombo engages the IC, the statement said.
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Colombo twists investigation of Canadian Tamil citizen's brutal slaying

[TamilNet, Saturday, 26 May 2012, 22:56 GMT]
Sri Lankan military intelligence and the SL Police have projected the murder case of the late Mahendrarajah as a ‘robbery’ related crime by allegedly ‘fixing’ approvers. Informed sources in Ki'linochchi told TamilNet Saturday that the laptop and the mobile phones missing from the victim and ‘recovered’ later by the SL police were found erased of contact details and logs. The manoeuvrings of the Colombo regime, its defence establishment and its intelligence outfits in fixing the case shows only a tip of the iceberg about the existing conditions, but a careful scrutiny and pursue of even minor details of the fixing exercise would reveal the dimensions of the plight faced by Eezham Tamils in the captivity of the genocidal regime, informed circles knowing background stories further said.
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SL military coerces Jaffna University students to closed-door talks

[TamilNet, Friday, 25 May 2012, 06:21 GMT]
The commander of the occupying Sinhala military in Jaffna, Maj. Gen. Hathurusinghe, intimidated leaders of the boycotting students of the Jaffna University to come for a closed-door meeting at the occupation headquarters on Wednesday to tell them that the SL military would not provide security to students if they engage in political or social activities. The students were boycotting classes since last Friday, after an attack on the students’ union secretary, Mr. Dharshananth, when he was going to the university to organise Mu’l’livaaykkaal remembrance. Demanding security assurance to come from the Vice Chancellor of the university, earlier the students refused to talk directly with the occupying military unless it was an open meeting involving the media. But through the VC the military threatened the students of ‘dire consequences’ to force them into a closed-door meeting.
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India’s Marxist Communist Party calls for withdrawal of Sri Lanka military

[TamilNet, Thursday, 24 May 2012, 03:33 GMT]
The Marxist Communist Party of India (CPI-M) in a press release on Wednesday called for immediate withdrawal of the Sri Lanka military stationed in Tamil areas of the island. In one of the five resolutions passed at the state committee meeting of the party held at Ealakiri in Tamil Nadu last Sunday, it was decided to urge the Indian government to diplomatically pressurize Sri Lanka to withdraw the troops. Observing that the SL military is intimidatingly omnipresent in the Tamil areas, the CPI-M said that it strongly condemns the stand of Mahinda Rajapaksa not to withdraw the troops. It only shows that the Sri Lanka government is not interested in resolving the Tamil question, the press release further said.
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1972 constitution reminds Tamils not to backtrack idea of nationhood

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 23 May 2012, 18:05 GMT]
The 1972 republican constitution of Sri Lanka, which for the first time constitutionalised a unitary Sinhala-Buddhist state, was enacted without the participation or mandate of Eezham Tamils. Not only their political opposition was brushed aside but even the judiciary also played a game against legal challenges. The constitution forced the shift in Tamil polity from federal to the idea of right to self-determination of the nation for independence, pointed out Jaffna University Law Lecturer, Guruparan Kumaravadivel on Tuesday, citing legal cases involving the republic. “You don't have to go further and look for anyone else than Murugesu Thiruchelvam's argument in the Amirthalingam trial-at-bar as to why our politics should be done on the idea of Tamil nationhood and self-determination,” Guruparan said addressing especially to the people in the TNA.
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40-year-old Sri Lanka constitution burnt at cremation ground of Parvathi Amma

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 23 May 2012, 02:05 GMT]
The 1972 republican constitution of Sri Lanka, which for the first time constitutionalised the unitary Sinhala-Buddhist State and brought in the name ‘Sri Lanka’, against the wishes of the nation of Eezham Tamils in the island, has been burnt on its 40th anniversary on Tuesday, 22 May 2012, at the spot where the LTTE leader Pirapharan's mother was cremated but desecrated by the occupying Sinhala forces last year.
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Muruthawala, Muruththanai

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 22 May 2012, 00:56 GMT]
The jungle of Murutha trees
The place of Muruthu trees (Lagerstroemia flos reginae)
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Sinhala-Buddhist temple opened to ‘celebrate’ genocide at Mu’l’livaaykkaal

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 22 May 2012, 00:33 GMT]
Coinciding the third anniversary of Mu’l’livaaykkaal genocide, a secretly built Sinhala-Buddhist stupa was inaugurated at Vaddu-vaakal, the entrance to the Mu’l’livaaykkaal genocidal strip of land in Mullaiththeevu. As the Tamil public is yet to be allowed into the stretch of land, the building of the stupa at the genocidal site went unnoticed until its inauguration. Two weeks ago, Colombo opened a coastal road built by Chinese, linking Mu’l’livaaukkaal with Kokku’laay and Pulmoaddai where Sinhala colonisation takes place in high speed. Mu’l’livaaykkaal has already become a ‘tourist’ place for the Sinhalese from the South. While the ‘tourists’ and the Sinhala colonists using the new road are permitted to roam in the stretch of land, Tamils are not permitted to get out of the vehicles. The stupa, with an all-Sinhalese signboard has been built at the side of the new road.
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General of genocide released in Colombo

[TamilNet, Monday, 21 May 2012, 23:11 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s former military commander General Sarath Fonseka, who led the Sinhala military in the ‘international community’ –abetted genocidal war against the Eezham Tamils, has been released by the Mahinda Rajapaksa regime in Colombo on Monday. While the so-called international community reducing the genocide into mere war crimes, now verbally demands investigation into the ‘war crimes’, the general who led the war and later imprisoned because Rajapaksa found him a challenge, was considered by the USA as a ‘political prisoner.’ His release on that count was always demanded by the USA, the main architect of the war. Fonseka during the war declared that Sri Lanka belongs to the Sinhalese. He also ridiculed the politicians of Tamil Nadu protesting the war as ‘jokers’.
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Jaffna University comes to standstill following attack on student leader

[TamilNet, Saturday, 19 May 2012, 04:31 GMT]
Following a lethal attack on the Jaffna University Students’ Union Secretary, Dharshananth, who was on his way to the university on Friday to organize the Mu’l’livaaykkaal Remembrance Day, students demanding the Vice Chancellor to get assurance for their security, decided to boycott classes and continue their struggle in various ways until the security question is resolved. We are not waging an armed struggle. We fight for our rights and for our people through democratic means. But politically motivated violent attacks continue to be unleashed against us. The International Community has committed a colossal blunder. Three years after the genocide none of the culprits has been punished. Our message to Tamil political parties and to the diaspora is that their actions should not betray our hopes, students said in their speeches.
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Tamil parties hold Mu'l'livaaykkaal Remembrance in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Saturday, 19 May 2012, 04:20 GMT]
How could one expect that the Colombo government would negotiate with us to find a political solution while we are not even refused to honour the war dead people on this day, asked Maavai Senathiraja MP of the Tamil National Alliance on Friday at the remembrance event held on Martin Road office by the Tamil National Alliance. Meanwhile, the Tamil National Peoples Front (TNPF) also observed a separate event marking Mu'l'livaaykkaal. The occupying SL military was registering the details of the participants. Both the remembrance events took place amid heavy deployment of the SL military.
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Photos show torture before killing Canadian Tamil in Vanni

[TamilNet, Saturday, 19 May 2012, 02:30 GMT]
The Canadian Tamil victim who was allegedly slain by Sri Lankan military-operated killing squad two weeks ago, while he was in Ki'linochchi claiming back his properties appropriated by the occupying military, was severely tortured before he was finally killed, legal sources in Ki'linochchi said. The 53-year-old victim, Mr Andrew Mahendrarajah Anthonippillai, was tortured inside his house by the squad and was chased out of the house and slain. The wristwatch he was wearing at the time of the killing stopped ticking at 8:56 p.m. on the fatal day of 03 May 2012, according to the photos submitted to the courts by the police. Due to legal and international value of the evidence, TamilNet publishes edited photos in black and white, cautioning readers against the strong content.
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Colombo unwilling to give grounds to Tamils, says NY Judge

[TamilNet, Friday, 18 May 2012, 00:40 GMT]
Accusing the international community for being "unwilling or incapable of objective fact finding on the issue applied to the Tamils and what has happened in Sri Lanka," Judge Dearie, Judge for the District Court of the Eastern District of New York (EDNY), said during the sentencing hearing of Karunakaran Kandasamy, a Tamil charged with material support to the LTTE, that the situation "really does cry out for some independent reliable voice to tell the full story," and noted that "[t]his Colombo government doesn't seem willing to give ground in terms of the Tamil community, and although the war is over, the conflict continues."
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Solheim joins orchestration against independence of Eezham Tamils

[TamilNet, Thursday, 17 May 2012, 05:13 GMT]
Spelling out the current orchestration against the independence of Eezham Tamils, the former Norwegian minister and failed peace facilitator, Erik Solhiem said that international support is not for a new separate state in Sri Lanka, but for a multicultural, multiracial and multireligious state. Given the age-old understanding of the phrase in the context of the island, Solheim in other words was only implying support to the annihilation of the ancient nation of Eezham Tamils. Solheim, recently removed from ministerial position by his own party was invited to address a gathering in Oslo on Tuesday, by a 2012-registered Tamil organisation led by Yogarajah Balasingham alias Basharan, who was rejected by Norwegian Tamils in the diaspora elections. Sharing the stage with Solheim was visiting TNA parliamentarian Suresh Premachandran.
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SLA expands occupation of Mannaar with two new camps

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 16 May 2012, 23:42 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lankan Army in Mannaar has started constructing two new large camps in Murungkan in appropriated lands, civil groups in Mannaar mainland complain. Hundreds of SL Army soldiers have come into agricultural settlements occupying water supplies and appropriating lands adjacent to lakes. Tamil and Muslim females complain that they are unable to move in their villages in evening times due to the heavy presence of occupying Sinhala soldiers. Questioning why the SLA is constructing two large camps in the same village, civil activists expressed fear that the move was part of a larger design to occupy and Sinhalicise the entire area comprising fertile agricultural lands of Tamils and Muslims.
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