British FM meets Tamil expats in London

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 17 September 2008, 13:17 GMT]
During a community meeting attended by over one thousand British Tamils, UK Foreign Minister Lord Mark Malloch Brown, said: "UK Government believes that minorities in any country must have their right to practice the fullest and free to expression of self determination. "We are extremely concerned about how this government behaves and treats the Tamil community, and we are using all the means available to us to press the government to do otherwise."
Full story >>

Tamil youths in Thampalakaamam, Potkea'ni live in fear

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 16 September 2008, 20:25 GMT]
Large number of Tamil youths and girls of Potkea'ni and Thampalakaamam villages in Trincomalee district have been seeking refuge in safe areas elsewhere due to the increase of abduction by unidentified armed persons coming in white van and also due to cordon search operation conducted by the Sri Lanka Army assisted by home guards during nights, civil sources have complained to human rights activists of the district.
Full story >>

3 Tamils abducted in Uddappu, released

[TamilNet, Monday, 15 September 2008, 17:46 GMT]
Three Tamils including a woman abducted Friday by unidentified armed men in a white van at Uddappu, a Tamil village in Chilaw district, were released Sunday morning, Munthal police said. They were forcibly taken away from their houses by the armed men in the white van.
Full story >>

India: While taking action against LTTE, steps should also be taken to protect civilians

[TamilNet, Monday, 15 September 2008, 09:30 GMT]
India's Defence Minister A K Antony was quoted by Press Trust of India (PTI) on Monday as saying: "While taking action against the LTTE, steps should also be taken to protect the civilian Tamils in Sri Lanka and ensure their safety and security." The statement by the Indian Defence Minister has come in the wake of reports that Indian military personnel were involved in providing military support to the Sri Lankan forces.
Full story >>

History rejects military defeat of liberation movements- Gajendrakumar

[TamilNet, Sunday, 14 September 2008, 18:22 GMT]
Responding to a question on year-end dead line set by the Government of Sri Lanka to defeat the Liberation Tigers, Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam, a Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian from Jaffna said, "We have been told many times and by many governments of Sri Lanka that the war will be won and that the LTTE will be defeated...I am yet to come across an instance when a national liberation movement in any part of the world has been militarily defeated," in an interview published in Colombo weekly the Sunday Leader 14th edition.
Full story >>

2 Tamils abducted in Colombo

[TamilNet, Saturday, 13 September 2008, 19:24 GMT]
Two Tamil civilians were abducted in Colombo in two separate incidents. The latest abduction was reported from Colombo where a 35 year-old Sahathevan Uthayakumar, a native of Nalloor in Jaffna district had been missing since Friday morning. He had been residing in Sea Street along with his father. He had been working in Colombo as a motor mechanic. He was allegedly taken by force by some unidentified armed men when he was returning home after work, according to complaints made to the Police by his father.
Full story >>

Outsiders quit Colombo, tells Defence Secretary

[TamilNet, Saturday, 13 September 2008, 15:03 GMT]
Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapakse told the State run Daily News Saturday that thousands who stay in Colombo "without any valid reason" should return to their villages as they are creating a huge security concern. "We must be prepared for this. That is why wer doing human control measures. People criticise us for fundamental rights violations when we do these things," paper quoted Gotabhaya as saying.
Full story >>

IDPs urge foreign aid workers not to leave Vanni, block convoy

[TamilNet, Friday, 12 September 2008, 16:50 GMT]
Internally Displaced Persons, who gathered Friday morning in front of the UNHCR office at Karadippoakku junction in Ki'linochchi, pleaded with the remaining officials of the UN and International NGOs not to leave Ki'linochchi as their presence was critical, not only for humanitarian assistance, but also to sustain a secure zone to escape. They said they feared that in the coming days Sri Lanka military will employ Colombo’s scorched earth policy to destroy key Vanni towns using aerial and artillery bombardment. Meanwhile, a group of IDPs blocked the convoy of NGO vehicles in a peaceful protest from 6:00 a.m, forcing the NGOs to abandon their trip on Friday.
Full story >>

Police arrests six NorthEast Tamils in Gampaha

[TamilNet, Friday, 12 September 2008, 02:52 GMT]
Six Tamils were arrested in cordon and search operations conducted in several parts of Gampaha town from Wednesday evening till Thursday dawn. Police said they conducted the operation with the assistance of home guards on receipt of information that a group of strangers had infiltrated into the town.
Full story >>

India betrays Tamils by providing military personnel to Sri Lanka - Vaiko

[TamilNet, Thursday, 11 September 2008, 14:46 GMT]
Referring to the news that two Indian radar operators were wounded Tuesday when the Liberation Tigers of Tamileelam (LTTE) attacked the Vanni Headquarters of the Sri Lankan military, Vaiko, the General Secretary of the Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (MDMK), in a letter sent Thursday to the Indian Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh, said that the Indian Government was "caught red handed in its unpardonable betrayal" of involving Indian military personnel in Sri Lanka's "genocidal war" against the Tamils. He blamed the top level bureaucrats in India, particularly the national security adviser, for "clandestinely conspiring" with the Sri Lankan government.
Full story >>

Police arrests 56 Tamils in Colombo

[TamilNet, Thursday, 11 September 2008, 09:40 GMT]
Sri Lanka Police in the city of Colombo arrested fifty-six Tamils in two separate cordon and search operations conducted from Wednesday evening till Thursday dawn in Mt.Lavinia and Dam street in Colombo. Thirty-two were arrested in Mt.Lavinia and twenty-four in Dam Street in Colombo, sources in Colombo said.
Full story >>

12 upcountry Tamils arrested in Matale

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 09 September 2008, 15:31 GMT]
Twelve Tamil youths who are residents of upcountry were arrested in a cordon and search operation conducted at Naula in Matale police division from Sunday evening till Monday. They are being detained in Naula police station for further inquiry, according to the Police.
Full story >>

Time for Britain to act, says UK Parliamentary group for Tamils

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 09 September 2008, 15:14 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s decision to bar foreign aid staff at this critical juncture from the Vanni region, when these internally displaced people most need help of the aid staff, begs the question whether the Government of Sri Lanka will ever adhere to international norms, said All-Party Parliamentary Group for Tamils in a statement issued on Tuesday. "Government of Sri Lanka should be made to realise that time for soft talking is over and it should be warned more tough actions will follow if it fails to fall in line with international norms and standards," the group said urging the British government to act.
Full story >>

UN pulls staff from Vanni, aid workers fear 'bloodbath'

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 09 September 2008, 13:33 GMT]
United Nations staff have begun leaving Vanni this week after Sri Lanka’s government ordered aid workers out of the Tamil Tiger controlled region and told them to remove their equipment with them. The government move comes after the UN agencies said they were unable to advise civilians to vacate LTTE-controlled areas in compliance with a government directive to this effect. Over 160,000 people have been displaced in the past two months by Sri Lankan offensives and a humanitarian crisis is fast developing, aid workers said. And amid indiscriminate bombing and shelling, some aid workers are warning of an impending bloodbath.
Full story >>

3 Tamils arrested in Katunayake, Seeduwa

[TamilNet, Monday, 08 September 2008, 16:07 GMT]
Three Tamils arrested in a cordon and search operation conducted in Katunayake and Seeduwa areas from Saturday evening till Sunday morning are still detained in police station for further investigations. These three youths are natives of Jaffna district and had been working in garment factories located in trade zones in the Negombo district, media sources said.
Full story >>

Police, homeguards detain 9 Tamils in Colombo

[TamilNet, Saturday, 06 September 2008, 11:34 GMT]
Nine Tamil civilians, including two women, were taken into custody Friday morning in a cordon and search operation conducted in Wellawatte area in Colombo district. The operation commenced Thursday evening and concluded Friday morning, sources said.
Full story >>

'It is now the Tamil diaspora'

[TamilNet, Saturday, 06 September 2008, 07:02 GMT]
A conference on Sri Lankan diaspora that took place last week in Kuala Lumpur provided an opportunity to understand the broad perspectives of the Eezham Tamil diaspora, its universal aims and development agenda on one hand and to witness the subtle efforts by certain elements to nullify its identity and hijack its noble agenda to the diplomatic benefit of the Sri Lankan state on the other hand, according to a Malaysian Tamil scholar.
Full story >>

Tissainayagam, PTA, and Humanitarian Crisis in Vanni

[TamilNet, Friday, 05 September 2008, 11:45 GMT]
The action taken by the Sri Lankan Government to indict Tissainayagam, for stating the truth and exercising the right of fair comment he enjoys as a journalist, make it impossible for any dissent from the governments point of view to be published by the press in Sri Lanka. Tissainayagam is the first journalist to be caught up under the Draconian twins, the Prevention of Terrorism Act No:48 of 1979 (PTA) as amended, and the Emergency Regulations (EMR).
Full story >>

Silence of IC indelible for Tamil memory - Fr. Emmanuel

[TamilNet, Thursday, 04 September 2008, 13:15 GMT]
"The roles played by the major powers in overlooking the state terrorism and human rights violations of the Sri Lankan state, will stay permanent in the Tamil memory for ever," said Rev. Prof. Dr. S.J. Emmanuel, the former Vicar General of Vanni region, in an open letter from Germany, reacting to the silence of the International Community to the unfolding catastrophe of civilian sufferings in the districts of Mullaiththeevu and Ki'linochchi, overcrowded with IDPs seeking protection from the atrocities of the Sri Lankan forces. His statement comes as Sri Lanka Army's artillery shells reached Ki'iinochchi in the early hours of Thursday.
Full story >>

1200 Tamils languishing under custody in Western Province - SL Minister

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 02 September 2008, 14:35 GMT]
Upcountry Peoples Front (UPF) parliamentarian and a deputy minister in Mahinda Rajapaksa's government, P. Rathakrishnan, has compiled a report with details of around 1,200 Tamil youths of both sexes, languishing in the detention centres and prisons in South after being arrested in Colombo and its suburbs recently. Mr. Rathakrishnan has told media that he would demand the advisory committee of the Sri Lankan Defence Ministry to expedite the inquiries against the detainees and the police to ensure that innocent Tamil civilians are not harmed when enforcing 'law and order.'
Full story >>