Puththoor villagers blame SL police for shielding culprits of rape, murder

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 06 November 2013, 12:23 GMT]
Sinhala police officials of the occupying Sri Lankan State are protecting the culprits committing rape and murder of Tamil women, accuse the residents of Puththoor in Valikkaamam East in Jaffna at a protest held on Wednesday following the recent rape and murder of 27-year-old woman, Maithili Amirthalingam, who was recovered dead from a well near her house on 29 October. The SL Police officials was attempting to protect the culprits by stating that the death was caused by drowning and ignoring the medical report of the Judicial Medical Officer at Jaffna Hospital, the family of the victim told TamilNet on Wednesday. Maithili is the second victim subjected to brutal rape and murder within the last one month in Jaffna.
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India refuses visa to Macrae

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 05 November 2013, 12:40 GMT]
India has refused visa to Callum Macrae, the Channel-4 documentary maker, who produced a series of video documentaries exposing the war-crimes committed by the Sri Lankan military during the war on the Tamil people in Vanni where, according to UN estimates, the Petrie Report, more than 70,000 Tamil civilians were killed in 2009 alone. Macrae was planning to fly out on November 6 for a screening of the latest documentary in Delhi. The video contained footage showing LTTE TV anchor-actor Isaippiriya's capture during the last phase of the Lankan war. Still images released earlier showed Isaippiriya was bound, tortured and shot naked, and experts alleged that she was severely raped in custody before being shot by the Sri Lankan soldiers.
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"Perfidious Albion cannot change its spots"

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 05 November 2013, 03:12 GMT]
Asserting that the Commonwealth is simply a reincarnation of the British Empire and the British Imperial system, Professor Boyle, an expert in international law, remarked that placing the alleged genocidaire Mahinda Rajapakse as the Commonwealth Chairperson-in-office for the next two years, "will expose the Commonwealth as a Sick Joke." Professor Boyle found Prince of Wales and British Prime Minister David Cameron's attendance to CHOGM despicable and drew similarity to the American Founding Father Thomas Paine's charaterization of the British as "Perfidious Albion cannot change its spots," after the massacres of American soldiers at Lexington by the British Hessian mercenaries.
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Pressure mounts on Indian PM to boycott Sri Lanka CHOGM

[TamilNet, Monday, 04 November 2013, 19:38 GMT]
Tamil activists belonging to various groups sparked off protests in parts of Tamil Nadu and Puthuchcheari (Pudcherry) on Monday. At the same time, two senior Indian Central Government Ministers representing the ruling Congress Party from Tamil Nadu, Environment Minister Jayanthi Natarajan and Shipping Minister G.K. Vasan, have urged the Indian Prime Minister to boycott the Commonwealth summit in Colombo. Meanwhile, D. Raja, the national secretary and a Rajya Sabha member from the Communist Party of India (CPI), demanding a concrete reply from Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Monday said that Central government cannot ignore the unanimous resolution passed by the Tamil Nadu state assembly demanding India to boycott Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) scheduled to be held in Colombo later this month.
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British rights group documents 85 new cases of torture by Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Monday, 04 November 2013, 18:18 GMT]
“If the British government wants to be taken seriously in its stated commitment to using the Commonwealth meeting to highlight human rights issues, it must first come clean about how it has facilitated this abuse through the Home Office's forced removals programme,” said Freedom from Torture, the Chief Executive of Freedom from Torture, a UK based medical foundation, which provides therapeutic care for survivors of torture, in a statement issued on 01 November. The charity also stated that it had documented a further 85 cases of ‘post-conflict’ torture since the publication of ‘Out of the Silence’ in 2011.
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SL military steps up demolition of houses in Valikaamam North, Jaffna

[TamilNet, Sunday, 03 November 2013, 23:41 GMT]
Despite the ‘assurance’ to Tamil National Alliance (TNA) leader R. Sampanthan by Sri Lankan president’s secretary Mr Lalith Weerthunga that the demolition of houses inside the former ‘High Security Zone’ would be postponed, the occupying Sri Lanka Army in Palaali continues to bulldoze the houses of Tamil civilians in Va’ruththalai-vi’laan and Kurumpachiddi now being transformed into a permanent Sinhala Military Zone in 6,000 acres land in Valikaamam North in Jaffna. The Civil Military Coordination Office of the SL military in Jaffna told the civilians of Valikaamam that the SL military was free to demolish the houses and clear the area as it has officially been taken over by the military Establishment. Journalists were not allowed to witness the destruction.
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Colombo on “witch hunt” against local journalists, says deported IFJ Director

[TamilNet, Saturday, 02 November 2013, 09:03 GMT]
The Asia-Pacific Director of the reputed global media watchdog, International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), Ms Jacqui Park, who was arrested, detained for two days in house arrest at Hotel Galadari together with her colleague Ms Jean Worthington and kicked out of the island by the Sri Lankan regime on Friday, described Colombo’s officials of conducting a systematic “witch hunt” against local journalists as she reached Sydney on Saturday. While the Free Media Movement (FMM) in Colombo was coordinating an island-wide event in bringing together journalist associations that have been working under the prevailing media suppression and harassments by the Colombo regime, Ms Park and her colleague were visiting the island on tourist visa and were invited to attend the FMM event on Wednesday, where they were arrested.
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SL military, Buddhist monks demolish Saiva temple in Dambulla

[TamilNet, Friday, 01 November 2013, 23:16 GMT]
Buddhist monks assisted by SL military in civil, claiming that a Saiva temple in Dambulla is situated on the ‘sacred grounds’ of Buddha Boomi (Buddhist soil) demolished the Paththirakaa’li Amman Koayil Tuesday night, without allowing the temple management to even conduct the rituals for the closure of the temple and relocate the idols of deities inside the temple. The controversial demolition has taken place at the place where Buddhist extremists targeted a 50-year-old mosque for destruction last year, provoking the Muslims in the entire island. Dambulla, situated in the Matale District of Central Province, is a junction of major highways that link Jaffna, Trincomalee, Colombo and Kandy. Colombo – Trincomalee and Jaffna – Kandy highways cut at Dumbulla.
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SLA held Isaippiriyaa in custody before she was killed - Channel 4

[TamilNet, Friday, 01 November 2013, 11:45 GMT]
Channel-4 has uncovered new evidence in the form of a video where the 27-year-old LTTE journalist Shoba (Isaippiriyaa) was seen under the custody of the Sri Lanka Army soldiers before she was killed. Previously, Channel-4 has released images of the journalist and TV commentator stripped naked, hands tied behind back, and shot dead. Channel-4 adds in its news report that this new evidence of war-crime will add to pressure to British Prime Minister David Cameron to not attend the Commonwealth leaders' meeting (CHOGM) in Colombo scheduled to take place this month.
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Dias refused of participation in ICRC meet for alleged war crimes

[TamilNet, Thursday, 31 October 2013, 12:51 GMT]
Major General Jagath Dias, who was previously a deputy Counsel in Sri Lanka’s embassy in Germany, and was recalled by Colombo in 2011 "in response to accusations he was involved in war crimes," was refused participation in an ICRC conference to be held in Australia this December, media in Colombo reported. ICRC, while refusing to spell out the reason barring Dias from the meeting, said that "procedural matters, relating to international travel, were beyond the control of the ICRC." Dias was the commander of Sri Lanka Army's (SLA's) 57th division during the last phase of the Vanni war, where according UN estimate more than 40,000 Tamil civilians were killed. Another U.N document, the Petrie report, estimated the killings to be more than 70,000.
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EPC silent on appropriation of Tamil lands in Thennaimaravadi

[TamilNet, Thursday, 31 October 2013, 01:16 GMT]
The Mahaweli Development Authority that is under the control of the Colombo government is engaged in appropriating several acres of lands belonging to Eezham Tamils in their traditional village of Thennai-maravadi on the border of Trincomalee district and Mullaith-theevu district, despite repeated appeals to Eastern Provincial Council by the concerned people and their elected representatives. On Tuesday, a team of Mahaweli ‘Development’ Authority officials visited the lands to earmark these lands for appropriation.
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US, South Korean ambassadors meet Wigneswaran in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 30 October 2013, 23:50 GMT]
The US Ambassador in Colombo, Michele Sison, visited Jaffna Wednesday to greet the newly elected Northern Provincial Council (NPC) Chief Minister CV Wigneswaran in the presence of media at a photo session at the Chief Minister's residence. The US Ambassador told the journalists in Jaffna that the NPC election was a ‘big milestone’ for the people of the Northern province. The provincial administration under unitary and genocidal Sri Lanka, set up in Jaffna by Indo-US ‘strategic partnership,’ focuses on every inroad it could make without conceding any of the fundamental aspirations of Eezham Tamils, commented political observers in Jaffna, adding that the picture is becoming increasingly clear that the Tamil struggle has to be now waged directly against Washington and New Delhi.
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Alaikallu-poadda-ku’lam,
Mathavu-vaiththa-ku’lam

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 30 October 2013, 23:27 GMT]
The tank, the banks and watercourses of which were laden with stone facing.

The tank having a covered conduit or set up with a covered conduit.
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Media organizations condemn SL military intimidation of 5 journalists in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 30 October 2013, 23:12 GMT]
The Jaffna Press Club (JPC) and Colombo-based Sri Lanka Tamil Media Association (SLTMA) have condemned SL military for intimidation, censorship and death threat on five Tamil journalists on Monday at Valikaamam North in Jaffna, where the journalists working for different media organisations, went to cover the visit by a delegation comprising of Tamil National Alliance parliamentarian and Northern Provincial Council members.
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New Delhi experiments Eezham model ‘counterinsurgency’ on its own people

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 29 October 2013, 17:04 GMT]
Indian State now consolidates a policy that extraordinary political movements of mass basis, coming from peoples long exposed to social oppression, material deprivation, un-freedom and stark poverty in India, have to be eliminated with the deployment of an increasing number of armed forces. The more the forces are special and armed-to-the-teeth with impunity, the more they are effective, is the policy outlook. “The establishment's view is that over a period of time, this strategy, notwithstanding its viciousness, has paid rich dividends and must be persisted with. The decimation of the LTTE in the summer of 2009 in Sri Lanka has served to consolidate this view,” says an October 2013 publication of the Human Rights Forum based in Andhra Pradesh.
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Muslim party protests in New Delhi against Sri Lanka CHOGM

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 29 October 2013, 07:09 GMT]
The Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI), a pan-Indian Muslim political party, demonstrated on Tuesday at Jantar Mantar, New Delhi demanding India to expel the Sri Lankan State from the Commonwealth. If that is not possible, the very least India could do is not to participate in the CHOGM held at the genocide-accused country, the protestors from the grassroots Muslim organization emphasized. Speakers at the demonstration also condemned Indian Minter for External Affairs Salman Khurshid’s recent statement that he would represent India at the CHOGM in Sri Lanka.
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Sinhala paramilitary attacks resettling Tamils in Trincomalee, 7 wounded

[TamilNet, Monday, 28 October 2013, 20:08 GMT]
Seven Tamil farmers were seriously injured Monday evening when Sinhala encroachers, accompanied by Sinhala paramilitary known as ‘home guards’ attacked them using axes and swords at Padu-kaadu in Kangkuveali of Moothoor division of Trincomalee district. The wounded victims were rushed to Moothoor hospital. Four of the victims have been admitted to the emergency ward, according to medical sources at Moothoor hospital. Sinhala paramilitary men, who attacked the uprooted Tamils, have come from Deyyata village. The brutal attack took place when the uprooted Tamil farmers were preparing to resume agriculture at their 900 acres of paddy land after securing permission from the divisional secretary and the SL police to engage in farming.
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Alarm over malnutrition in North East

[TamilNet, Monday, 28 October 2013, 12:08 GMT]
Malnutrition level has reached 50% in North and East while the island-wide rate stands at 29%, according to a leading Community Medicine Specialist attached to Sri Lankan Ministry of Health in Colombo. Dr Murali Vallipuranathan, who held a workshop to journalists in Jaffna on reporting health, revealed the latest malnutrition rates from the districts in North and East as 53% in Batticaloa, 51% in Vanni (comprising 4 districts), 45% in Trincomalee, 44% in Ampaa’rai and 43% in Jaffna district. The alarming malnutrition rate in the occupied country of Eezham Tamils comes after more than 4 years of the so-called ‘development’ propaganda waged by the Sri Lankan State.
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SL military issues death threat to NPC members, TNA parliamentarian in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Monday, 28 October 2013, 10:13 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers deployed in transforming the former High Security Zone in Valikaamam North into a Sinhala Military Zone (SMZ) on Monday rounded up and threatened a delegation of TNA parliamentarian, elected members of the Northern Provincial Council and the members of two civic bodies, at gunpoint on Monday, when the delegation went to the site following the complaints by the uprooted people that the occupying SLA was demolishing their houses using bulldozers. When the TNA parliamentarian E. Saravanapavan and the elected members of Northern Provincial Council M.K. Sivajilingam and Tharmalingam Sitharthan were watching the demolition, armed SLA soldiers with their officers rounded up and threatened the delegation at gunpoint and threatened them to leave the site after deleting photos and recordings from their cameras.
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Cheddi-paa'laiyam

[TamilNet, Sunday, 27 October 2013, 11:14 GMT]
The camp or settlement of a merchant or merchant guild
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