Staff protest at Eastern University

[TamilNet, Friday, 13 July 2001, 21:36 GMT]
Academic and non-academic staff of the Eastern University picketed the campus at Vanthaarumoolai in Batticaloa on Friday morning. The picketing, held for an hour, was in protest of the closure of the University of Jaffna and the arrest by government soldiers of student leader, Mr.Thivyan.
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Students criticise Jaffna VC as protests mount

[TamilNet, Thursday, 12 July 2001, 21:10 GMT]
Schools in the Jaffna peninsula were closed Thursday in protest against the closure of the Jaffna University and the detention of the undergraduate Krishnasami Thivyan. Groups of protesting students who gathered near their schools in Jaffna town were assaulted by Sri Lanka army and police personnel who have stepped up security here since early this week.
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One killed in SLN attack on Mannar fishermen

[TamilNet, Thursday, 12 July 2001, 19:42 GMT]
A fisherman was killed when Sri Lanka Navy Fast Attack Craft opened fire on local fishing boats in the seas off Silavathurai on the southern coast of the Mannar district around 7.30 a.m. Thursday morning. Josephthaasan Cruz, 36, father of four, was shot dead in his boat. His colleague, Soosaithasan Mary Alphonse, 25, escaped the attack.
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Tamil student protests spread

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 11 July 2001, 19:42 GMT]
The Sri Lanka army and Police tightened security around the Jaffna University Wednesday. Soldiers and Police personnel were deployed on the roads in the environs of the campus and near its main entrance. The security forces set up roadblocks and checked civilians. Students of the Jaffna Technical College boycotted classes in protest against the closing down of the Jaffna University. Undergraduates of the Eastern University and the Vavuniya campus of the Jaffna University continued their protest boycott Wednesday. "The University is under siege by the army and Police," a spokesman for the undergraduates said.
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Jaffna University shut down

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 10 July 2001, 10:07 GMT]
Jaffna University has been closed for an indefinite period following a week long protest by students against the arrest of their colleague by Sri Lanka Army soldiers on 2 July.
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MOD clearance stipulated for Vanni travel

[TamilNet, Saturday, 07 July 2001, 15:54 GMT]
The Sri Lankan government introduced new regulations this week stipulating that civilians should obtain permission from the Ministry of Defence to travel to the Vanni. The regulation, which came into effect from 5 July, was criticized by Parliamentarians for the Vanni Saturday.
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Rape protest shuts down North and East

[TamilNet, Friday, 06 July 2001, 09:47 GMT]
Shops, schools, offices, courts and banks were closed and streets were mostly deserted in Sri Lanka's northern province, in the Tamil, Muslim majority areas of the eastern province and in the Tamil towns of the central province Friday in response to a call for a general shut down by the alliance of eleven Tamil parties and by Tamil trade unions to protest against the rape of Tamil women by Sri Lankan security forces. The Tamil parties held a protest demonstration in downtown Colombo Friday.
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Security stepped up for Black Tigers day

[TamilNet, Thursday, 05 July 2001, 16:29 GMT]
Government troops stepped up security measures in towns in the north and east of the island as Liberation Tigers observed Black Tigers day Thursday. In Mannar Sri Lanka Army soldiers announced over loud hailers that stern action would be taken against businessmen who closed their establishments to mark the day. "Shops that remain closed would be forcibly opened, and they would not be allowed to open for the next eight days" the army announced, according to residents in the town.
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Govt. must investigate paramilitary group violations -Amnesty

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 03 July 2001, 21:20 GMT]
An upsurge in arrests, "disappearances" and torture linked to paramilitary activity in the Vavuniya area must be urgently addressed by the Sri Lankan government, Amnesty International said today in a letter to President Kumaratunga. "The People's Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE), paid and armed by the government, has been perpetuating a pattern of systematic abuses," the organization said.
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Driver, schoolboy missing in Mannar

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 26 June 2001, 02:04 GMT]
The Mannar Citizens’ Committee Monday received four complaints about two disappearances and two arrests. Arumugam Thevarajah, 40, a driver who went to the Sri Lanka Army's pass office in Mannar town on 18 June to obtain a temporary resident permit to stay in the suburb of Panankattikottu, did not return home and is missing since then, according to a complaint lodged by his sister Kanapathipillai Thevanayagi. A fifteen-year-old student in Mannar has also been reported missing since 13 June. Relatives who fear that he might have been arrested and detained have sought the Citizens’ Committee’s assistance to trace him.
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Tigers deny shutting down civilian crossing

[TamilNet, Monday, 25 June 2001, 11:50 GMT]
The Voice of Tigers radio said in its morning news broadcast Monday that the Liberation Tigers denied a Sri Lanka army report that they had closed the main crossing point to the Vanni. No lorries from the Vanni came to the crossing point for civilians and international humanitarian agencies at Piramanaalankulam, 28 kilometres west of Vavuniya, on Saturday. The SLA Saturday issued a statement that claimed the lorries had not come because the LTTE had closed the crossing. “We are not aware of any disruption in the normal operation of the Piramanaalankulam checkpoint. The question of lorries coming from or going to the Vanni is a matter that comes totally under the purview of the Government Agent, not us”, the press officer of the ICRC, Mr. Harasha Gunawardene, told Tamilnet Monday, referring to the SLA statement which quoted the ICRC as saying no lorries had come from the Vanni on Saturday.
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Troops move amid protesting students

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 19 June 2001, 12:42 GMT]
More than five hundred undergraduates of the Eastern University held a protest demonstration Tuesday morning demanding the release of one of their colleagues who was arrested and detained by the Sri Lanka army in Vavuniya last Friday 15 June and objecting to the military entering and searching the campus on 14 June. Students stood on either side of the highway carrying placards and crying slogans as Sri Lanka army soldiers who had arrived in an armoured vehicle stood at the main entrance of the university.
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Red Cross driver arrested

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 19 June 2001, 10:57 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army soldiers arrested a driver of the Sri Lanka Red Cross, Vavuniya branch, for transporting banned items to the Vanni region controlled by the Liberation Tigers, security sources in the northern town said Tuesday.
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SLA detains Eastern University undergrad

[TamilNet, Saturday, 16 June 2001, 17:30 GMT]
An undergraduate of the Eastern University was arrested and detained by the Sri Lanka army for questioning Friday in Vavuniya. A group of ten undergraduates of the Eastern University returning from the Vanni were taken for questioning at the SLA entry point in Piramanaalankulam Friday morning. Nine undergraduates were released from the SLA Goods Shed camp after interrogation. But Mr. Selvarasa Suntharalingam was detained for further investigations at the 21-1 Brigade of the SLA in Vavuniya, Human Rights Commission sources in Vavuniya said.
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Twelve SLA wounded in attack and own fire

[TamilNet, Saturday, 16 June 2001, 16:53 GMT]
Six Sri Lanka army soldiers who were lying in ambush were wounded in Sector Eight on the Vavuniya-Mannar highway when the Liberation Tigers attacked them late Friday night around 11.40 a.m. military sources said. Six troopers of an SLA ambush party were injured when an SLA road clearing patrol opened fire them, mistaking them for Liberation Tigers, in the general area of Kalmadu, west of the A9 junction at Thaandikkulam near Vavuniya town Friday morning around 6 a.m.
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Two SLA troops, policeman killed

[TamilNet, Friday, 08 June 2001, 12:03 GMT]
Two Sri Lanka Army soldiers and a policeman were killed and a security assistant (Home guard) was wounded in two separate attacks by the Liberation Tigers on Friday in the northern Vavuniya region, local police sources said.
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Vavuniya quota fuels less vehicles, more corruption

[TamilNet, Friday, 08 June 2001, 10:24 GMT]
The restrictions on the issue of fuel to the public in the Sri Lanka army controlled areas of the Vavuniya region is contradictory to the principles of governance and therefore should be removed forthwith, said the Union of Christian Churches in Vavuniya in a letter addressed to Major General S.H.Shantha Kottegoda, Commander of the Security Forces in Vanni this week.
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MP slams Sri Lanka's judicial system

[TamilNet, Thursday, 07 June 2001, 21:31 GMT]
"In Sri Lanka the Tamil people are denied the exercise of their sovereignty through the judicial system because fundamentally it is made to work against them. The security forces and the laws of the land are meant to protect the people. But in Sri Lanka the law is harnessed only to protect the security forces. .
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Four LTTE casualties

[TamilNet, Thursday, 07 June 2001, 21:02 GMT]
Three members of the Liberation Tigers were killed in a confrontation with Sri Lanka Army soldiers at Manal Aaru on Wednesday, the Voice of Tigers radio said this evening. A member of the LTTE's border force died in a confrontation in the Muhamaalai area in the southern sector of the Jaffna peninsula on Thursday the radio added.
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Mannar rape and torture suspects score one

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 05 June 2001, 21:11 GMT]
The Mannar judge M.H.M Ajmeer instructed the Superintendent of the Anuradhapura prison that the 14 Police and Sri Lanka Navy personnel accused in the rape and torture of two women in Mannar on 19 March need not be produced in court Wednesday following an interim order by the Court of Appeal, legal sources said Tuesday.
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