4 Tamil civilians arrested in Katunayake HSZ

[TamilNet, Monday, 31 August 2009, 14:13 GMT]
Four Tamil civilians arrested by the police while staying with their relatives and friends in Katunayake, a High Security Zone (HSZ) in Colombo district Saturday night are still being detained in the Katunayake police station and interrogated by the Terrorism Intelligence Department (TID). All the four are natives of north and east, sources said.
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Sri Lankan court imprisons Tamil journalist for 20 years

[TamilNet, Monday, 31 August 2009, 06:03 GMT]
J.S. Tissainayagam, a senior journalist and Sunday Times columnist, was sentenced to twenty-year rigorous imprisonment by Colombo High Court judge Deepali Wijesundara on Monday. Mr. Tissanayagam has been indicted under the notorious Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) and Emergency Regulations (ER), and was charged on three counts including printing and distributing the publication North Eastern Herald Monthly magazine.
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Video, leaked memo bedevil Moon's climate visit to Norway

[TamilNet, Sunday, 30 August 2009, 13:23 GMT]
International Development Minister Erik Solheim told Norway's Aftenposten Wednesday that he will discuss the details of the gruesome video showing Sri Lanka soldiers executing naked, bound men, during Ban Ki Moon's Norway visit this week. Meanwhile, the visit occurs while 'The Economist' gave Mr. Moon a failed grade in his UN performance (30%), and a leaked memo by Norway’s Ambassador to the United Nations, Mona Juul, accused Moon for being a "passive observer when thousands lost lives and were driven from their homes [in Sri Lanka]," in her mid term assessment of Ban’s tenure.
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Journalist Tissanayagam case judgement on Monday

[TamilNet, Sunday, 30 August 2009, 11:27 GMT]
The Colombo High Court judge Ms. Deepali Wijesundara is to deliver the judgement on Monday August 31 on the case against senior journalist J. S. Tissanayagam who was indicted under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) and Emergency Regulations (ER), legal sources in Colombo said. Tissainayagam was charged on three counts including printing and distributing the publication North Eastern Monthly magazine and the offences were stated to have been committed during the period between June 1, 2006 and June 1, 2007. He has been detained for 425 days since March 06 2008.
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Sinhala journalist abducted in white van; later released

[TamilNet, Sunday, 30 August 2009, 11:16 GMT]
Unknown persons arriving in a white van abducted P. Ekaneligoda, a journalist who worked as Features Editor of Siyarata, official organ of the main opposition United National Party (UNP) and LankaeNews website, in Makumbura in Homagama police division in Colombo district on Thursday night, sources in Colombo said. He was subsequently released the next day.
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SC directs AG to expedite inquiry into Tamil detainees in prison

[TamilNet, Saturday, 29 August 2009, 17:01 GMT]
The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Friday directed the Attorney General to prepare an emergency plan to expedite the inquiry of the hundreds of Tamils now being detained in prisons without any inquiry under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) and Emergency Regulations(ER) in consultation with the Justice Ministry Secretary. “It is unjust to keep them indefinitely in remand. As a result of this delay the number of fundamental rights violation petitions challenging the detention without inquiry is on the increase hampering the smooth functioning of the judiciary,” said Chief Justice Asoka de Silva.
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Colombo suspends releasing Trinco internees from Menik farm

[TamilNet, Saturday, 29 August 2009, 15:53 GMT]
Sri Lanka authorities, without prior notice and without citing any reason, have suspended Saturday, a planned release of a group of 600 persons out of about 3,000 internally displaced persons who are residents of Trincomalee district and fled from Vanni and currently being interned in military supervised Menik Farm in Vavuniyaa to their own villages, civil sources in Vavuniyaa told media. More than 300,000 Tamil civilians are currently being held in the internment camps in Vavuniyaa.
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SLA blocks spouse from collecting Welikada victim's body

[TamilNet, Saturday, 29 August 2009, 11:30 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) officials Saturday denied permission to Mrs Devendran Saro, the wife of a Welikada prisoner who died in questionable circumstances inside the maximum security prison in Boralle last week, to travel to Colombo to collect her husband's body, civil society sources in Jaffna said. The second Tamil prisoner who died under the same circumstances is yet to be identified.
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Chauvinism and greed 'naked' in Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Saturday, 29 August 2009, 04:07 GMT]
It was frightening to see the combined effect of naked chauvinism of Sri Lanka and naked greed of powers, writes TamilNet political commentator in Colombo responding to the video clip displayed Tuesday. “Such a trend in the establishments is a challenge to every lay human being of the civilized world. While rising up to free people in the internment camps is a spontaneous response, what is of paramount importance is independent political organisation of Tamils in order to meet the challenge of the same forces that are now coercing or enticing them to drop righteous aspirations. Tamils are not asking for other’s land or for empires. They only ask for their own land and there is nothing to get scared or to feel ashamed of. As people of classical heritage, if Tamils fail, they fail not merely their cause but an entire human civilization,” he writes commenting on current Tamil affairs.
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Horrendous video images indicate violation of International Law - UN expert

[TamilNet, Friday, 28 August 2009, 22:23 GMT]
Philip Alston, the UN Special Rapporteur on extra-judicial, summary or arbitrary executions, commenting on the video clip aired in British Channel-4 TV, allegedly showing Sri Lankan troops executing prisoners, stressed the need for an investigation, AFP reported. The images, which Alston described as "horrendous," indicate a serious violation of international law if found to be authentic, AFP reported Alston as saying. The video showed victims stripped naked and their hands crossed and tied behind their backs, when they were executed.
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Jaffna Tamil youth abducted in Colombo

[TamilNet, Friday, 28 August 2009, 16:39 GMT]
Unidentified persons abducted a Tamil youth from Achchuveali in Jaffna in Colombo on 23 August around 5:00 p.m in front of the lodge he was staying in, according to the complaint lodged by his mother to Human Rights Commission (HRC) office in Jaffna. The youth had been expelled from Malaysia where he had sought refuge in 2006, her mother said in her complaint.
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2 Tamil political prisoners killed in Welikada

[TamilNet, Friday, 28 August 2009, 14:42 GMT]
Two Tamil political prisoners have died under 'questionable circumstances' inside the Sri Lankan Central Prision at Welikada in Borallea this week, civil sources in Colombo revealed on Friday. One of the prisoner's wife, a native of Vaddukkoaddai, was informed by Jaffna police that her husband, 30-year-old Sinnaiah Devendran, had died three days ago while he was under going treatment at prison hospital.
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4 Tamil youths arrested in Colombo city

[TamilNet, Friday, 28 August 2009, 04:36 GMT]
Special Task Force (STF) commandos arrested Wednesday night four Tamil youths from Upcountry employed in shops in Colombo Fort and Pettah in a search conducted Wednesday night, sources in Colombo said. The youths were arrested on the streets in Fort and Pettah.
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Switzerland ‘deplores’ block on Tamils’ movement, donates essential drugs

[TamilNet, Friday, 28 August 2009, 01:05 GMT]
Announcing its third donation of essential drugs of the Tamils confined in Sri Lanka’s militarised camps, Switzerland Thursday “deplore[d] the continued lack of freedom of movement” for those in the camps and appealed for Colombo to cooperate with the international community and allow humanitarian actors access to the people “rapidly and without hindrance.” Although the press release by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) referred to the people held in the barbwire ringed camps as "Sri Lankan civilians," they are in fact all Tamils - comprising the population of the northern Vanni region.
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Civil officers’ quarters in Vavuniyaa attacked

[TamilNet, Thursday, 27 August 2009, 15:08 GMT]
Unidentified persons attacked official quarters of several government and NGO officers located in Vavuniyaa Wednesday around 11:00 p.m. They threw stones at these official residences, according to complaints lodged with Vavuniyaa Police immediately after the attack.
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Opposition MPs denied access to Vavuniyaa IDP camps due to political motives

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 26 August 2009, 11:45 GMT]
“Government denies permission to opposition parliamentarians to visit the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Vavuniyaaa IDP camps as it intends to forcibly get their 175,000 votes in the future Presidential and Parliamentary elections,” members of Human Rights Committee of Sri Lanka opposition parliamentarians said in a press conference held Wednesday morning in Colombo. “Our committee will complain against the government on this issue to the International Committee of Parliamentarians,” they further said.
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Colombo Police arrest 3 upcountry Tamil youths

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 26 August 2009, 10:29 GMT]
Sri Lanka Police arrested three Tamil youths in the Colombo suburb of Minuwangoda Wednesday morning in a search operation, sources from Colombo said. The youths are being detained in the Negombo Police station, according to relatives of the youths.
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Video shows style of extra-judicial killings in Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 25 August 2009, 20:34 GMT]
A video clip received from Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka (JDS) evidences the way extra-judicial killings are executed in the island. The video captured in January show the behaviour of Sri Lanka’s soldiers during the war that is claimed ‘humanitarian operation’ to rescue the Tamils, JDS reported Tuesday. The conversations of the killers are in Sinhala. “From the casual nature of the conversations and from the fact that it is taking place in an open area in broad daylight – it can be surmised that these are not ordinary acts by rogue elements carried out without the permission from the top leadership. The soldiers egging each other on, the insulting jokes and the laughter show that there is a consensus that these cold blooded killings should take place,” JDS further reported.
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Special search operations conducted in Wellawatte

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 25 August 2009, 19:24 GMT]
Wellawatte, where Tamils are living in majority in Colombo was subjected to search operations from morning till evening Tuesday following reports that the police had seized suicide kits and explosives from a place. Special Task Force (STF) personnel were deployed in every nook and corner of Wellawatte.
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Boyle: India a moral failure, Colombo's monstrosity matched only by Nazis

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 25 August 2009, 00:51 GMT]
"India’s support to Rajapakse Government is an atrocious crime. Tamils are undergoing unspeakable hardship, and the monstrosity is only matched by the Nazis terror on Jews. The world had simply closed its eyes....Failure to ensure safety to Sri Lanka Tamils is a moral disgrace to India and a stain in India's illustrious history," said Francis Boyle, expert in International Law and Professor at the University of Illinois College of Law, during an interview with Tamil Nadu magazine, Dalit Murasu.
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