SL Police intensifies restrictions on Saiva devotees at disputed ‘chaitya’ hilltop in East

[TamilNet, Thursday, 10 October 2019, 23:31 GMT]
The SL Police has started to impose restrictions on Tamil devotees putting up a temporary shed during the annual six-day fast of Kantha Shasti which is to take place between 28 October and 02 November 2019 at Kun'raththoor-malai Murukan temple in Choodaik-kudaa in Trincomalee. The chairperson of the board of trustees of the temple of Murugan deity at Maththa'la-malai, Mr T Jegatheesan, said the SL Police was demanding the board to utilise direct permission from the SL Archaeology Department.
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Indian Coast Guard trespassed into waters off Jaffna, 18 fishers detained since 03 October

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 09 October 2019, 20:17 GMT]
Ahead of Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit to Mamallapuram in Tamil Nadu, where Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to host an informal summit, the Indian Coast Guard (ICG) has stepped up patrol activities in the Palk Straits and the Bay of Bengal. On 03 October, the ICG has trespassed into the waters off Jaffna peninsula and detained eighteen poor Eezham Tamil fishers, who were engaged in crab fishing off Ezhuvai-theevu island in an offshore vessel with 18 feet fishing bay. The families are yet to hear from the detained fishermen who are believed to be in the custody of Tamil Nadu Police in Puzhal prison, Annalingam Annarasa, the deputy chairman of Jaffna Islets Fisheries Federation said on Tuesday. Ezhuvai-theevu is the island that is seen first when coming from the Indian coast to Kayts Harbour.
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Divisional Secretary, TNA MPs must act to release Chegnchoalai lands: civil activist

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 08 October 2019, 18:43 GMT]
The Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka (HRCSL) seems to have blindly applied the 2013 Circular of the SL State to arrive at its recommendation to reverse the ownership of Chegnchoalai orphanage lands at Malaiyaa'la-puram in Ki'linochchi. The circular proposes that the original landowners, displaced during the times of war, were the rightful owners to their properties. However, the HRCSL has failed to take all the facts regarding the Chegnchoalai lands, says civil activist from Karaichchi, Mr Murugiah Thamilchelvan. The Divisional Secretary and Tamil National Alliance Parliamentarians should take responsibility and cancel the decision mooted by the HRCSL, he said.
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Heinous act by HRCSL: former orphans of Chegnchoalai on the brink of losing lands

[TamilNet, Monday, 07 October 2019, 23:12 GMT]
The so-called Human Rights Commission of genocidal Sri Lanka (HRCSL) has proposed to the Divisional Secretariat office in Karaichchi in Ki'linochchi to evict the resettled former orphans of Chengchoalai who are living at the lands which were bought by the orphanage from the original landowners during the times of war. Cheng-choalai was one of the civilian orphanages operated by the LTTE run de-facto state of Tamil Eelam. It was well known for bringing up children in an exemplary way producing artists and experts within various fields. The lands were allocated to the former orphans through proper purchases during the de-facto civil administration of the LTTE. However, the grounds are now being claimed by greedy elements with vested interests and the SL Human Rights Commission in Jaffna has proposed to do away the arrangement.
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EPDP joins Jaffna protest against desecration of Neeraaviyadi temple

[TamilNet, Sunday, 06 October 2019, 12:21 GMT]
Representatives of the EPDP, a paramilitary which was collaborating with the Sinhala military of genocidal Sri Lanka against the Eezham Tamils without course-correcting itself even during the height of genocidal onslaught in 2009, joined a common protest staged in Jaffna against the recent desecration of Neeraaviyadi Pi'l'laiyaar temple in Mullaiththeevu. Ex-militant Tamil parliamentarians in the TNA, which politically collaborates with the failed regime in Colombo also attended the protest. The demonstration demanded action against extremist Buddhist monks and condemned the Sinhala actors, including the SL Police extending tacit support to the ‘Buddhism foremost’ approach of the occupying SL State.
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Families inheriting lands from parents refused of land registration in Moothoor East

[TamilNet, Saturday, 05 October 2019, 22:06 GMT]
The authorities coming under the unitary system of occupying Colombo refuse to register title deeds for lands that are being inherited by newly married couples from their families in Moothoor East of Trincomalee district. The denial causes several other problems as the new families are unable to obtain bank loans or housing schemes without the proof of land ownership. Several appeals were made to resolve this issue since 2008 without any outcome, says I Raveendran, the deputy chairman of Vinaayakar Community Centre in Champoor. Now, the families fear that they would be permanently losing the lands if Gotabhaya Rajapaksa becomes the next SL President.
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SL Archaeology, Police continue to disturb Tamils’ right to worship at Vedukku-naa'ri hilltop

[TamilNet, Friday, 04 October 2019, 21:50 GMT]
The Sinhala Police stationed in Nedungkea'ni in Vavuniyaa North has stepped up its harassment of selected members of the trustee board of Vedukku-naa'ri Sivan temple. The SL Police, citing a case lodged by the ‘Sinhala Only’ SL Archaeology Department against the use of ladder during the recent temple festival, has asked the selected members to appear at the station for investigations. The SL Police was already harassing the organisers of the festival against the use of loud-speakers playing Saiva devotional song and issued instructions to remove the ladder, specifying deadlines for the removal.
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Raghavan plans to distribute uncultivatable lands to Tamils to compensate for loss of fertile lands

[TamilNet, Thursday, 03 October 2019, 19:16 GMT]
SL Governor to Northern Province Suren Raghavan has come up with another deceptive offer to the uprooted Eezham Tamil land-owners in Mullaiththeevu. Raghavan is planning to release some plots of saline and brackish soil along the coast as compensation for their fertile lands, which the SL State had seized from the Tamil land-owners under the so-called ‘Mahaweli’ L system, civil sources at Mullaiththeevu District Secretariat said. Suren Raghavan met the District Secretary and TNA Parliamentarian Mrs Shanthy Sriskandarajah at the District Secretariat in Mullaiththeevu on Wednesday. Mr Raghavan has proposed to de-gazette some plots that are retained under the System L. However, the plots coming under the planned release were only ‘tharavai’ lands, the officials said.
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No place for human rights in China’s white paper for future world

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 02 October 2019, 22:28 GMT]
The People’s Republic of China (PRC), with its ambition as a rising global power, showcased this week its 70th anniversary of the founding of the republic staging big celebrations and a massive military parade in Tiananmen Square in Beijing. Along with the fanfare, the RPC also spelt out its worldview for future China and the world combined in a white paper titled “China and the World in the New Era.” Although the Xi Jinping doctrine was upholding the principles of the UN Charter, the term ‘human rights’ was totally missing in the document, which perceives state-to-state relations as the bedrock of international relations. Even the term civilisation was used to defend the states-centric narrative. There were no specific concerns about stateless nations and peoples that don’t fit into the states-centric status quo of the so-called world order.
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Genocidal Sri Lanka hits back at UN, claims it passed ‘litmus test’ on human rights in 2019

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 01 October 2019, 18:26 GMT]
SL President Maithiripala Sirisena deployed his Foreign Secretary to tell the UN Department of Peace Operations (UNDPO) in New York that the 2011 Report of the Secretary-General’s Panel of Experts on Accountability, led by Marzuki Darusman, was “so seriously flawed that the Human Rights Council at the time had rejected to issue it with a formal number, as a UN document.” Brushing away the criticisms being levelled against the SL State for promoting war criminals in the rank and file of the military, Ravinatha Ariyasinha ‘reminded’ the UNDPO that the 2015 OISL report was not an outcome of a criminal investigation. SL Commander Lt Gen Shavendra Silva has not been subjected to any criminal investigation and the public domain reports of the UN cannot be taken as substantive as establishing his culpability, Ariyasinha told the Under Secretary General of the UNDPO, Mr Jean-Pierre Lacroix.
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SL military, police, traders, exert pressure on civil authorities in Mannaar to alienate lands

[TamilNet, Monday, 30 September 2019, 20:49 GMT]
The occupying SL Police in Mannaar city is under constant pressure from the civil, religious and private property owners to vacate from their premises. The SL Police is harassing the Divisional Secretariat officials to release crown lands as compensation to relocate itself. Similarly, the SL Army from Tha'l'laadi cantonment in the mainland is demanding alternative properties allocated for its use before considering the release of 21 acres of the lands it has seized from a private Tamil land-owner since 1990. In the meantime, millionaire Sinhala investors from the South want large tracts of public lands leased or sold to them to put up wind and solar plants along the coast of the Mannaar island from Oalaith-thoduvaay to Thoadda-ve'li. The officials are already struggling to find lands for thousands of uprooted families from Mannaar, including those returning from exile in Tamil Nadu.
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No to alternative lands, original lands must be released with compensation, say Tamil activists

[TamilNet, Sunday, 29 September 2019, 18:19 GMT]
SL Governor to North Suren Raghavan is deceiving the Tamil land-owners by proposing to consider accepting alternative properties in return for the fertile lands, which the occupying SL military wants to retain under its control in Valikaamam North in Jaffna. Out of 47 GS divisions, 21 are affected by SL militarisation. It is the most fertile soil in the entire peninsula. The SL military has continued widespread cultivation, dairy farming and fishing by utilising the resources of the uprooted Tamils even after the end of the war in 2009. It is not justifiable, said Nallathamby Ponrajah, the member of Valikaamam South Divisional Council. In the meantime, grassroots activists are planning to launch a renewed campaign to free their lands said SL State must return the properties and also compensate for the loss of income caused by the unjustified occupation of their areas so far.
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SL State-owned paper refuses to publish condemnation issued by Hindu Congress

[TamilNet, Saturday, 28 September 2019, 13:24 GMT]
Colombo-based Attorney-at-Law, Pranavan Neelakandan, has said that the SL State (Lake House) owned English daily, the Daily News, had refused to publish a statement, which was issued by the All Ceylon Hindu Congress (ACHC) on Friday. The paper declined to publish it even as a paid publication. The statement was about the recent “degrading act of cremating the remains of a Buddhist Monk within the premises of the Holy Semmalai Neeraviyadi Pillayar Kovil in Mullaitivu.” Meanwhile, protests continued on Friday in Jaffna, Trincomalee and Batticaloa against the conduct of the monks and the SL Police at Neeraaviyadi in Mullaiththeevu earlier this week.
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UN employed former Sri Lanka Army officer alleged of killing Tamils in Madu Church

[TamilNet, Friday, 27 September 2019, 16:50 GMT]
The United Nations Department of Safety and Security (UNDSS), tasked with providing security services to the UN system in delivering its programmes globally, has had a former Sri Lanka Army officer among its rank and file the security staff in the recent years. The ex-SLA officer has previously “killed Tamils in Madu church,” during the times of war, according to allegations made by New York based Inner City Press (ICP), a non-profit organization, which has critically exposed the wrongdoers within the UN system for almost 15 years. The former SL Army officer in question, Lt Col Parakrama Siriwardana, is currently the Head of Security and Emergency Unit at the China-led Asian Infrastructure and Investment Bank (AIIB), since May 2018.
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Lt Col Thileepan’s 32nd commemoration gains momentum across North-East

[TamilNet, Thursday, 26 September 2019, 17:49 GMT]
Eezham Tamils in the North and East marked the 32nd annual commemoration of the sacrifice of LTTE’s Jaffna Political Head Lt Col Thileepan (Rasiah Parthipan), who sacrificed his life in a historical dry hunger-strike in 1987, which exposed India’s interests-oriented invasion at that time. Tamil National Peoples’ Front organised a march from Vavuniyaa to Nalloor in the North mobilising the youth with significant participation of women. The Tamil National Alliance marked the event in Ki’linochchi and Batticaloa while the former NPC Chief Minister Justice C.V. Wigneswaran’s Tamil Makkal Kootani commemorated the remembrance at Point Pedro. The Remembrance event at Nalloor, where Thileepan sacrificed his life, was marked as a joint remembrance event beyond group affinities.
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Batticaloa Bar Association protests against contempt of court shown by extremist monks

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 25 September 2019, 17:48 GMT]
Tamil and Muslim lawyers of Batticaloa Bar Associaton boycotted their work on Wednesday expressing their solidarity with the Tamil lawyers from Jaffna and Mullaiththeevu who were allegedly assaulted by the extremist Buddhist monks on Monday. The representatives of the bar association described the events that unfolded at Neeraaviyadi on Monday as contempt of court both in word and deed.
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Tamils mobilise in Vanni exposing lopsided law enforcement of genocidal Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 24 September 2019, 15:06 GMT]
Tamil lawyers in North boycotted the courts on Tuesday condemning the failure of the law enforcement authorities of the unitary SL State that failed to respect the decision by the Magistrate of Mullaiththeevu Courts. Covering their mouths with black ribbons, the lawyers numbering around one hundred, gathered inside the premises of the Magistrates’ Court in Mullaiththeevu. In the meantime, the grassroots organisations including the Catholic and Saivaist dignitaries took to the street in Mullaith-theevu staging a protest march from Mullaiththeevu old hospital to the District Secretariat passing the court on their way. An overwhelming majority of those marched in the protest were young generation Tamils.
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Sinhala extremist monks assault Tamils, say Buddhism stands above Law in Lanka

[TamilNet, Monday, 23 September 2019, 18:38 GMT]
A group of violent Sinhala Buddhist monks and a mob led by Bodu Bala Sena’s Secretary Gnanasara Thero, carried the remains of the late Kolamba Medhalankara Thero to cremate the controversial monk within the premises of the Tamil Saivite temple at Neeraaviyadi in Mullaiththeevu. They were violating the court ruling that specified a separate locality to mark the ritual. “Sri Lanka is a Buddhist country. Buddhism stands above the Law here,” proclaimed one of the Buddhist monks, who assaulted the Tamil lawyers and the students near the Neeraaviyadi Pi’l’ laiyaar temple at Naayaa’ru in Mullaiththeevu on Monday. The lawyers were present to convey the information. Elected Tamil politicians and the young generation of Tamil students were witnessing the lopsided behaviour of the SL military and the police, who were only defending the interests of the monks.
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More Sinhala settlers brought to Muslim village in East

[TamilNet, Sunday, 22 September 2019, 21:53 GMT]
The 27th Battalion of the Gajaba Regiment of the occupying Sinhala Army, stationed at the 13th Mile Post on Anuradhapura - Pulmoaddai Road, continues to bring Sinhala settlers into the lands, which it had seized from twenty-four Tamil speaking families at the Muslim village of Maalaanoor in Pulmoaddai, the native residents told TamilNet on Sunday. They blamed UNP's Deputy Leader Sajith Premadasa, who is aspiring to become the party's presidential candidate in the forthcoming elections as backing the controversial colonisation scheme through the National Housing Development Authority (NHDA), which comes under his ministry of housing and construction. Thirteen Sinhala settlers have already received houses through the NHDA.
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SL military wants to cremate remains of controversial monk inside temple premises

[TamilNet, Saturday, 21 September 2019, 23:21 GMT]
The occupying Sinhala military is preparing to stage the cremation of the late Kolamba Medhalankara Thero, who was causing ethnic tensions through the controversial project of Sinhala-Buddhicisation at Neeraaviyadi in the ancient Tamil village of Chemmalai in Naayaa'ru, Mullaiththeevu. The project was launched in 2009 by a genocidaire commander of the SL Army, Major General (retd) Jagath Dias and the late Anunayake of the Seruwila Saranakiththi Kalyani Sect, Seruwila Saranakiththi Thero, who was promoting Sinhala colonization along the border of North and East until his demise in May 2016. Kolamba Medhalankara Thero has passed away due to cancer, and the SL Army and SL Navy want to cremate him on Sunday at the premises of the Pi'l'laiyaar temple where he was violently installing a Buddha statue earlier this year.
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