Emergency extended for another month in Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 06 November 2007, 16:23 GMT]
Sri Lanka's parliament Tuesday adopted a motion moved by the Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wikremanayake on behalf of the government to extend the State of Emergency for another month with a majority of 120 votes. 124 parliamentarians voted for the motion and four against.
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Jubilant Sri Lanka threatens to wipe Tigers out

[TamilNet, Friday, 02 November 2007, 13:27 GMT]
Hailing the Air Force bombing raid Friday which killed the Tamil Tigers chief negotiator and Political Wing head, Mr. S. P. Thamilchelvan and five other LTTE officials, Sri Lankan Defence Secretary, Gotabaya Rajapaksa said his government would kill other LTTE leaders ‘one by one’. Sources said he made his comments, quoted by Reuters, at a celebratory meeting at Temple Trees, the official residence of President Mahinda Rajapakse, who is also Mr. Gotabaya’s brother. Meanwhile, the Colombo stock market soared on news of the deaths.
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'Targeted killing of LTTE Chief Negotiator shatters hopes for peace' - TNA

[TamilNet, Friday, 02 November 2007, 11:11 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s largest Tamil political party, the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Friday expressed its shock at the killing in a government airstrike of Mr S. P. Thamilchelvan the LTTE’s Chief Negotiator and head of its Political Wing and five other LTTE officials. The TNA said the targeted killing of the LTTE’s Chief Negotiator underlined President Mahinda Rajapakse’s insincerity towards a negotiated solution, the TNA also said.
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Anuradhapura Magistrate orders remand for 11 Tamil civilians

[TamilNet, Thursday, 01 November 2007, 19:24 GMT]
Eleven Tamil civilians including a woman arrested soon after the aerial and land attack of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) on Anuradhapura airbase are being held in remand in Anuradhapura prison under heavy security. They are residents of Moothoor, Palaiyootu, Gandhi Nagar, Trincomalee and Vavuniya in the northeast provinces.
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Tigers gun down 2 DPU intruders in Mannaar

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 30 October 2007, 20:04 GMT]
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) Tuesday said a roaming patrol of their border security combatants on Monday evening gunned down two Sri Lanka Army (SLA) Deep Penetration Unit (DPU) intruders inside LTTE controlled Valaignan Kaddu area in Mannaar district. Arrangements were underway to hand over the dead bodies of the SLA soldiers through the ICRC, informed sources in Vanni said. The Tigers have lost a combatant in the counter-ambush.
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Rights group launches campaign against attacks on Journalists in Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 30 October 2007, 08:03 GMT]
Expressing concern on the level of prevailing impunity of the killings of media personnel in Sri Lanka, the Asian Human Rights Commission, citing 11 cases where 12 Tamil media personnel were killed since 31 May 2004 till 29 April 2007, on Tuesday urged the public to write letters to the concerned Sri Lankan authorities demanding impartial investigation in order to identify and bring the perpetrators to justice. "Not a single person has been brought before the court," in the 11 cases, the AHRC noted and urged the public to forward a copy of their appeal to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions.
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APRC on hiatus

[TamilNet, Saturday, 27 October 2007, 12:56 GMT]
Despite claims by Colombo media in early August that the All Party Representative Committee (APRC) formed by Sri Lanka's President Rajapakse has met with "sudden death," amid opposition from SLFP, MEP and the JHU to the "unit of devolution" ahead of the Committee report deadline of 15 August, the APRC discussions were resurrected; the latest on the resilient APRC is that after the 51st sitting on the 23rd October, the APRC is taking a 2 month recess, reports from Colombo said. The current status: APRC is "exploring the possibility of reaching consensus among the political parties on power sharing."
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Journalists arrested for exposing Sri Lanka Minister's financial improprieties

[TamilNet, Thursday, 25 October 2007, 15:21 GMT]
Following the Wednesday arrest of staff reporter of The Sunday Leader, Arthur Wamanan, related to a story in the newspaper that a Rs. 80,717 telephone bill of Enterprise Development Minister Mano Wijeratna's wife was paid by the National Gem Corporation, the CID has asked Investigative Editor of the paper, Dilrukshi Handunnetti, Thursday to come to the CID and record a statement pertaining to the same story, media reports from Colombo said.
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20th anniversary of hospital massacre remembered in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Sunday, 21 October 2007, 12:28 GMT]
Twentieth death anniversary of twenty-one persons including medical specialists, nurses, attendants, patients, and members of public who were killed inside Jaffna Teaching Hospital (JTH) by Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) troops stationed in Jaffna Fort on 21st October, 1987 was held at the Jaffna Teaching Hospital Sunday morning at 10:15 a.m., sources in Jaffna said. Mrs. K. Yogarany, a staffer at the Teaching Hospital, presided the event.
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2 Tamil youths abducted, killed in Ampaa'rai

[TamilNet, Sunday, 21 October 2007, 11:42 GMT]
Sammaanthu'rai police in Ampaa'rai district recovered the bodies of two Tamil youths with gun shot wounds Sunday morning in front of Addaippaalam Maariyamman Koayil in Sammaanthu'rai police division. Alleged to be from Karuna group paramilitary armed men had abducted the two youths and shot them dead elsewhere before dumping their bodies in front of the temple, residents in Sammaanthu'rai said.
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Convicts used as cover for Sinhala colonization in East- MP

[TamilNet, Saturday, 20 October 2007, 18:22 GMT]
Batticaloa District Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian S.Jeyananthamoorthy in a letter addressed to the President of Sri lanka Mahinda Rajapakse condemned the move by the Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL) to employ Sinhala prisoners at Maangkea'ni cashew plantation owned by Sri Lanka Cashew Corporation(SLCC).
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SLAF bombs Puthukkudiyiruppu in Vanni

[TamilNet, Friday, 19 October 2007, 21:30 GMT]
Five Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) Kfir bombers dropped more than twenty four bombs in two sorties Friday morning, targeting civilian settlements in Vea'naavil and surrounding areas, sources in Vanni said.
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TNA opposes police station in Silaavaththurai

[TamilNet, Sunday, 14 October 2007, 05:19 GMT]
No useful purpose would be served in establishing a police station in the deserted village Silaavaththurai in Mannar district without taking immediate steps to resettle them in their traditional habitats, said Mr. Selvam Adaikalanathan, Wanni district Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian. Silaavaththurai residents have all been displaced to other areas after the recent offensives by Sri Lanka military on 01 September.
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TNA parliamentarians visit fasting detainees at Colombo prison

[TamilNet, Thursday, 11 October 2007, 14:46 GMT]
Three Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarians, Sivanathan Kishore, P. Ariyanenthran and K.Pathmanathan visited Thursday the Tamil political detainees who have launched a fast-unto-death campaign at the remand prison in Welikada. The prisoners handed over three separate petitions to be forwarded to the visiting UN Human Rights High Commissioner Louise Arbour, Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa and Attorney General C.R.de Silva.
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TNA delegation meets UN High Commissioner for Human Rights

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 10 October 2007, 16:24 GMT]
A delegation of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Wednesday evening met Louise Arbour, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights at the UN office in Colombo and briefed her about the deteriorating human rights situation in Sri Lanka, especially in the northeast.
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UN envoy meets Sri Lankan Human Rights Minister

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 10 October 2007, 06:12 GMT]
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Ms Louise Arbour, is due to meet Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse Thursday. She met Sri Lankan Human Rights Minister Mr.Mahinda Samarasinghe on Wednesday morning and discussed with him in detail the human rights situation on the ground, UN sources said.
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Welikade Tamil prisoners agitate to meet UN official

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 10 October 2007, 02:44 GMT]
Eighty six Tamil detainees in Welikade maximum security prison and forty Tamil prisoners from Magazine prison staged a token hunger strike Tuesday demanding that Sri Lanka Government arrange High Commissioner of Human Rights in the United Nations, Ms Louise Arbour, who is currently on a fact finding mission to Sri Lanka, to visit the detainees in the prison. The detainees said Ms Arbour should be told of the prison conditions, and the extended incarceration without the right to a trial, civil society sources in Colombo said.
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Emergency extended for another month in Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 09 October 2007, 17:39 GMT]
The Sri Lanka's parliament Tuesday adopted motion to extend the State of Emergency for another month by a majority of 93 votes. All constituent parties of the United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) including the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) and Ceylon Workers Congress (CWC) and Upcountry Peoples Front (UPF) voted for the motion.
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MP condemns SLA ban on construction of houses for Batticaloa IDPs

[TamilNet, Monday, 08 October 2007, 10:41 GMT]
Batticaloa District Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian, S. Jeyananthamoorthy, speaking to media this week, condemned the ban imposed by Sri Lanka Army (SLA ) for constructing permanent houses for Internally Displaced People (IDPs) at Naavaladi Junction within Vaaharai District Secretary's administrative area in Batticaloa District.
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Colombo court releases 9 Jaffna youths

[TamilNet, Friday, 05 October 2007, 00:33 GMT]
The Colombo Chief Magistrate Tuesday ordered the release of nine Tamil youths, detained in Boosa camp after being arrested during cordon and search operations in Colombo, legal sources in Colombo said.
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