10 Jaffna Tamil youths arrested in Chilaapam

[TamilNet, Monday, 30 June 2008, 15:51 GMT]
Ten Tamil youths were taken into custody by the police in a cordon and search operation conducted covering two fishing hamlets Aluthwatte and Yampuwatte located in the Chilaapam (Chilaw) police division from morning till evening on Sunday. They are being detained in the police station and subjected to interrogation, police said.
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Sri Lankan forces arrest 60 Tamils in Vavuniyaa

[TamilNet, Monday, 30 June 2008, 15:46 GMT]
Sri Lankan forces Monday evening arrested around 60 Tamils, most of them who had their place of birth or residence address from Jaffna in their identity cards. Tamil National Alliance parliamentarian from Vanni, Selvam Adaikkalanathan said he had taken up the concerns of the relatives with the authorities.
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Media organizations demonstrate against detention of journalist Tissanayagam

[TamilNet, Monday, 30 June 2008, 15:26 GMT]
Members of five media organizations staged a peaceful demonstration Monday around 10.30 a.m demanding the release of senior journalist J. S. Tissanayagam who is held in the custody of Terrorist Investigation Division (TID) of Sri Lanka police for the last 115 days, in front of Colombo District Court. The Court extended the detention order served on Tissanayagam and two other Tamils, V. Jasikaran and Ms. V. Valarmathy until September 5 on request made by TID.
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Australian socialist conference highlights Tamil rights

[TamilNet, Sunday, 29 June 2008, 12:20 GMT]
Tamil youth activists addressed a packed audience, who attended 'Resistance 2008', an annual conference of Australia's largest socialist youth organisation, held at the University of Technology in Sydney this weekend. At a workshop on Saturday the Tamil presenters urged the socialist activists in Australia to voice support for the right to self determination of the Eezham Tamils.
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Criminalization of Tamil diaspora counterproductive - IFT

[TamilNet, Friday, 27 June 2008, 10:27 GMT]
Geneva based Tamil diaspora federation, the International Federation of Tamils (IFT), in a press release issued Thursday, expressed disappointment on the misuse of anti-terrorist legislation by Canada to "suppress the voice of Canadian Tamil diaspora by listing the World Tamil Organization (WTM) as a terrorist organization," denounced the measures taken by other western governments on criminalization of Tamil diaspora as "plainly unhelpful and clearly counter productive."
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9 Tamils arrested in Embilipitya, Kottagala

[TamilNet, Thursday, 26 June 2008, 02:00 GMT]
The Police arrested nine Tamils, majority of them upcountry residents, in a joint cordon and search operations conducted jointly with the Sri Lanka Army from Monday night till Tuesday morning in Embilipitya and Kottagala in the southern province, media sources said.
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Oslo Forum delegates urged to adopt principled approach to Sri Lanka peace process

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 25 June 2008, 23:09 GMT]
Welcoming the reiterated stand of the International Community (IC) that there is no military solution to the conflict in Sri Lanka, a Norwegian Tamil organisation urged Tuesday global mediators to adopt a principled approach to the conflict in Sri Lanka. The organisation called on the IC to recognise the historical realities that there is a legacy of oppression by the Sri Lankan state against the Tamils and that the constitution of Sri Lanka has been a major hurdle in implementing agreed arrangements under the ethnic-majoritarian rule. The appeal further urged the IC to affirm that the Tamil people have a justifiable concern to safeguard the territorial integrity of their homeland.
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3 expatriate Tamils arrested in Colombo

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 25 June 2008, 14:33 GMT]
Kollupittiya police arrested three expatriate Tamil family men returning after many years abroad 18 June in kollupittiya, according to a complaint lodged with Sri Lankan Deputy Minister for Vocational Training and Industrial Education, P. Rathakrishnan, by the sister of one of the arrestees, sources in Colombo said. Police said that the arrests were made on a tip received by them that one of them was in possession of fake hundred dollar bills.
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Time for Tamil Nadu to Act

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 24 June 2008, 20:04 GMT]
The negative approaches of the International Community towards the Tamil cause in Sri Lanka and towards the Tamil diaspora are allegedly more due to the Indian attitude than due to pressure from the Colombo government. How to expect the IC to back the masses facing genocide, when their brethren in India are not voicing for them? Voicing is not merely holding rallies and making speeches. They will not be counted in an international forum. What about the Tamil Nadu Assembly passing a resolution, upholding the right to self determination of the Eezham Tamils, and announcing a policy of supporting it, confining to the purview of the Indian constitution and laws, opines columnist Chivanadi.
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India helping Colombo to perpetrate genocide on Tamils, accuses Vaiko

[TamilNet, Monday, 23 June 2008, 14:39 GMT]
In a letter to the Indian Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, Vaiko, General Secretary of the Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (MDMK), accused India of “equipping the Sri Lanka Government to help its war machine to perpetrate genocidal attacks against the Tamils...throwing to winds the farsighted foreign policy adopted by Pandit Nehru and Mrs. Indira Gandhi,” and urged the Prime Minister to not participate in the SAARC Conference.
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South African Tamils rally for Eezham Tamils' rights

[TamilNet, Sunday, 22 June 2008, 00:46 GMT]
Tamils in South Africa on Saturday gathered for Pongku Thamizh rally at the Arena Park Regional Hall, in Chatsworth, where they pledged to support the Eezham Tamils' right to statehood, and urged the international community to voice for the Tamils’ rights.
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Sampanthan regrets neglected relationship

[TamilNet, Saturday, 21 June 2008, 15:23 GMT]
Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentary group leader R. Sampanthan, who on Saturday met the visiting Indian top officials at India House in Colombo, told the delegation that "Tamils believed all these years that they were the natural allies of India, but it is not so today." Even the human rights violations against Tamils, abductions and genocide are largely ignored by India.
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The Symbols Affair

[TamilNet, Saturday, 21 June 2008, 13:41 GMT]
Tamil diaspora quarters lament the inability or unwillingness of the International Community to read the diaspora public opinion. They feel that Tamil Nationalism has to be differentiated from the issues between the International Community and the LTTE and no power should dictate or exert insinuating pressure on what the Tamils should aspire for and what not. According to them, in the guise of protecting the diaspora from intimidation of terrorism, the IC is intimidating the Tamil national sentiments and such approaches in the name of the international system are not going to bring in any credibility to the powers involved.
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WTM to fight Ottawa's decision

[TamilNet, Saturday, 21 June 2008, 03:24 GMT]
Following Ottawa's decision to designate the World Tamil Movement (WTM), a non-profit organization run by Canadian Tamils, as a terrorist organization, the Counsel for WTM, in a press briefing Friday said they will "apply for a stay of regulation," and if Minister of Public Safety, Mr Stockwell Day, is not inclined to reconsider his recommendation, WTM will make an application to the Federal Court for "judicial review" of the decision.
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Fein seeks action against Sri Lanka officials

[TamilNet, Friday, 20 June 2008, 05:41 GMT]
Bruce Fein, a Washington Times columnist, and a functionary in the Ronald Reagan administration, who is currently in Toronto, told a Toronto newspaper, that he is seeking support to "gathering evidence against two brothers of current Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapakse (one a U.S. citizen) and that nation's army chief, Sarath Fonseka," who he claims are responsible for "daily atrocities" in Sri Lanka.
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'Tamils seek liberation, not just an end to human rights abuses' - paper

[TamilNet, Friday, 20 June 2008, 02:21 GMT]
By reducing the Sri Lankan state’s multi-faceted repression of the Tamils to simply a problem of ‘human rights abuses’, the international community is avoiding the central question of Tamil self-determination and, through the logic of ‘reform’, seeking to legitimize its efforts to strengthen the Sri Lankan state, the Tamil Guardian newspaper argued this week. “For the Tamils, the atrocities inflicted on them by the Sri Lankan security forces are a symptom, an indicator of the racist logic of the Sinhala-dominated state; for the international community, they are the problem itself i.e. end the abuses and thus solve the crisis,” the paper’s editorial said.
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CWC, UPF to contest Sabragamuwa PC separately

[TamilNet, Thursday, 19 June 2008, 08:30 GMT]
The Ceylon Workers Congress (CWC) and Upcountry Peoples Front (UPF) Thursday officially announced that they would contest the election to the Sabragamuwa Provincial Council separately and not in the ticket of the ruling United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA). CWC and UPF are constituents of the UPFA. Leaders of the parties have been holding ministerial portfolios in the cabinet led by Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa.
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Pongku Thamizh rally in France draws 7000

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 18 June 2008, 23:21 GMT]
Around 7,000 French Tamils thronged the venue of Pongku Thamizh rally at Place du Président Edouard Herriot close to the French Parliament in Paris Wednesday. A parliamentarian of the French Communist Party (PCF), Maxime Gremetz, who came out of the Parliament, appreciated the Tamils for voicing for their rights. In a spontaneous address to the audience, he said that the proscription imposed on Liberation Tigers of Tamileelam (LTTE) was unfair and the movement was essentially a freedom movement.
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Seven leaders including G.G.Ponnambalam honored in SL parliament

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 18 June 2008, 04:29 GMT]
Seven political leaders, C.W.W.Kannangara, A.E.Goonesinghe, Dr.S.A.Wickremasinghe, G.G.Ponnambalam, Dr.N.M.Perera, Phillip Gunawardene and Alhaj T.B.Jayah were honored for their services to Sri Lanka, Tuesday in Sri Lanka's parliament. Their photographs were unveiled Tuesday morning in the parliament as a mark of respect in an event presided by Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake, parliamentary sources said.
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ACF quits, says no confidence in SL's investigations into massacre

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 17 June 2008, 12:33 GMT]
"It has been almost two years and we have seen nothing...We no longer have any confidence the Sri Lankan investigations will deliver justice." Executive Director, Francois Danel, of Action Contre la Faim (ACF) told Reuters saying that "it [ACF] had no confidence in the government investigation and had quit the island in protest."
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