3 abducted, teacher reported missing, in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Monday, 15 December 2008, 16:22 GMT]
Unidentified armed men arriving in a white van abducted three persons including a student from their houses during curfew hours in three separate incidents in Thenmaraadchi, two Friday and the third Saturday, according to complaints lodged with Human Rights Commission (HRC) Jaffna by the abductees’ family members. Meanwhile, the wife of a teacher from Vadamaraadchi has reported her husband missing since 8 December with HRC Jaffna office.
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Unidentified men shoot, injure two sinhala settlers

[TamilNet, Monday, 15 December 2008, 10:01 GMT]
Two Sinhalese villagers were injured when unidentified men opened fire on a village Samaagipura in Kanthalaai police division in Trincomalee district Saturday night around 7:00 p.m. The villagers were guarding a chena cultivation when they were shot. Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers and police rushed to the site on receipt of information and opened fire in retaliation.
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Slain parliamentarian Maheswaran's death anniversary to be held

[TamilNet, Monday, 15 December 2008, 03:59 GMT]
The first death anniversary of Mr.T.Maheswaran, Colombo district parliamentarian, is to be held on December 21 Sunday at Bambalapitya Kathireasan Hall. He was shot dead while attending prayer in Colombo Ponnambalavaaneswarar Kovil on January 1st this year.
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SLN troops assault fishermen, confiscate fishing pass in Jaffna lagoon

[TamilNet, Sunday, 14 December 2008, 12:15 GMT]
Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) patrol troops from Oorkaavatturai (Kayts) assaulted more than 135 fishermen Friday and Saturday while they were fishing in Jaffna lagoon and confiscated their fishing 'pass' issued by the Sri Lankan military authorities, according to complaints made by them to fisheries societies. The SLN troops in their patrol boats attacked the fishermen with rifle butts and batons and sent them back to the shore, fishermen who wish to remain anonymous for fear of retribution said.
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HRW: Sri Lanka's use of child soldiers to result in suspension of US military aid

[TamilNet, Saturday, 13 December 2008, 14:37 GMT]
Governments involved in the use of children as soldiers may no longer be eligible for US military assistance under legislation adopted by the US Congress on December 10, 2008, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Thursday. Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Chad, Congo Sudan, and Uganda are expected to be affected by the new legislation passed unanimously by both the Senate and the House, HRW further said.
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3 civilians, including child, killed in SLA shelling in Vanni

[TamilNet, Saturday, 13 December 2008, 13:02 GMT]
A 5-month-old child, sleeping inside an IDP hut near Thakarap-Pi'l'laiyaar temple on Hudson Road in Vaddakkachchi, was decapitated by a shrapnel of the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) fired artillery shell Saturday morning around 9:30. 26-year-old mother of the child was wounded in the artillery barrage that targeted the IDP settlement. Meanwhile, two males who went to their agricultural lands in Kanakapuram, a suburb of Ki'linochchi town, to unearth cassava roots, were killed in SLA shelling around 11:45 a.m. A 17-year-old youth narrowly escaped death with injuries from the shelling.
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SLA offers security to 'rehabiliatated' Jaffna youths

[TamilNet, Saturday, 13 December 2008, 02:46 GMT]
Jaffna Sri Lanka Army (SLA) Commander Major Gen. G. A. Chandrasiri, presiding over conclusion of a vocational training event Friday evening for youths placed in the SLA Special Rehabilitation Camp (SRC) after surrendering to the SLA, said that youths will be allowed to return home if they wish to, and that SLA is ready to provide full security for the youths, sources in Jaffna said.
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RSF condemns Colombo's censorship of BBC, Sunday Leader

[TamilNet, Friday, 12 December 2008, 12:50 GMT]
Paris-based media watchdog, Reporters sans frontières (RSF), in a press release issued Friday, condemned Sri Lanka's jamming of BBC World Service and blocking Sunday Leader from referring to Sri Lanka's Defense Secretary, Gotabhaya Rajapakse. "We are worried by the increase in direct and indirect censorship in Sri Lanka," Reporters Without Borders said. "Coming after a broadcast media bill reintroducing news censorship, the selective blocking of BBC and Sunday Leader reports is disturbing. The authorities must accept the free flow of news even when it contradicts what officials are saying and irritates certain politicians," the press release added.
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SLA death toll hits 120, army pushed back to Malaiyaa'lapuram - LTTE

[TamilNet, Thursday, 11 December 2008, 16:18 GMT]
The Liberation Tigers of Tamileelam (LTTE) officials told TamilNet correspondent in Vanni Thursday that the two-pronged SLA offensive on Ki'inochchi was pushed back Wednesday after heavy fighting in Puthumu'rippu in the west of Ki'linochchi and A'riviyal Nakar in the south. The final death toll of the SLA in both the fronts, according to the LTTE claim, was 120 killed in action and more than 280 wounded. Photographs given by the LTTE officials also indicate that there were some young recruits of the SLA among the dead. Meanwhile, the SLA, which admitted heavy fighting, has put the casualties at 20 SLA and 27 LTTE combatants as killed in the latest fighting.
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SLA cordon, search Thunnaalai in Vadamaraadchi

[TamilNet, Thursday, 11 December 2008, 15:17 GMT]
Following the killing of two youths by Sri Lanka Army (SLA) Wednesday morning during a sudden cordon and search conducted in Thunnaalai in Vadamaraadchi, SLA launched yet another intensive cordon and search Thursday early morning in the same area deploying more than a thousand troops, sources in Vadamaraadchi said. Young men and women were brought out to the temple courtyard and subjected to rigorous interrogation which went on until evening. Meanwhile, no information is available on the elderly mother of one of the two youths. The two bodies lie unclaimed in Manthikai government hospital in Vadamaraadchi, hospital sources said.
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500 SLA soldiers hurriedly transferred to Vanni from East

[TamilNet, Thursday, 11 December 2008, 13:44 GMT]
Informed military sources in the East said at least 500 Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers have been transferred to the war front in Vanni from the Eastern province in the recent days.
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Body of mentally ill man recovered from Jaffna well

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 10 December 2008, 17:36 GMT]
Koapaay police recovered Wednesday the body of a mental patient who went missing from Jaffna Teaching Hospital (JTH) Monday, in a well close to the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) camp in Thirunelveali in Jaffna. The body had severe assault injuries. The 54-year-old family man from Thenmaraadchi was admitted to JTH Monday and had gone missing the same day, according to his wife.
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90 SLA killed in two fronts of Ki'linochchi - LTTE

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 10 December 2008, 15:12 GMT]
More than 60 SLA soldiers were killed and 12 SLA bodies recovered by the Liberation Tigers of Tamileelam (LTTE) defensive units, 5 km west of Ki'linochchi Wednesday after defeating the SLA formations that attempted to advance from Oottuppu'lam to Puthumu'rippu, Tiger officials said. At the same time, a heavy fighting broke out at A'riviyal Nakar, south of Ki'linochchi, where 29 SLA soldiers were killed in the clashes. The Tigers have seized four AK-LMGs, two PK-LMGs and eleven T-56 assault rifles with ammunitions in the clearing mission at Puthumu'rippu Wednesday afternoon.
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SLA shoots dead 2 youths in Vadamaraadchi

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 10 December 2008, 14:06 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers shot and killed two youths Wednesday in a sudden cordon and search launched around 5:00 a.m on a house in Koayitkadavai, Thunnaalai in Vadamaraadchi, sources in Vadmaraadchi said. The two youths, one of them the owner of the house, attacked SLA soldiers with hand grenades and gunfire in the clash that lasted till 7:00 a.m, the sources added. One of the victims was identified while the other is yet to be identified.
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State of Human Rights in Sri Lanka on 60th anniversary of UDHR

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 10 December 2008, 08:04 GMT]
Although it is sixty years since 'Ceylon' as the Island was then known gained independence from Britain, and sixty years since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) was adopted by the United Nations, Tamils of Sri Lanka are yet to enjoy the benefits of UDHR. According to the Annual Report for 2007 of the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (WGEID), more than 5000 cases of disappearances are pending without clarification from the Sri Lankan Government. Data shows that there are more extra-judicial killings in the East now after the Government’s celebrated 'liberation of the East'.
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SLA imposes rigid pass system on civilian access to Jaffna hospital

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 09 December 2008, 20:16 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) directed the Jaffna Teaching Hospital (JTH) administration Monday to introduce a 'pass' system under which even patients in need of treatment will have to prove their ailment to the police and army personnel manning the check post in front of the hospital. This system is being imposed to to ensure the safety of the Sinhalese medical officers of JTH by restricting the number of patients and visitors seeking entry to the hospital, hospital authorities said.
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Gotabhaya Rajapaksa visits Jaffna

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 09 December 2008, 16:57 GMT]
Sri Lankan Defence Secretary and the brother of SL President Mahinda Rajapaksa, Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, paid a sudden visit to Jaffna Tuesday accompanied by the Air Chief Marshal and Sri Lanka Army (SLA) Commander Lt. Gen. Sarath Fonseka and high military officials, according to Sri Lankan Defence Ministry sources. Gotabhaya met the chiefs of the three armed forces of Sri Lanka in Palaali SLA Head Quarters where he arrived with his retinue Tuesday morning.
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NESoHR: Two thirds of civilian deaths caused by extrajudicial killings

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 09 December 2008, 13:29 GMT]
Since 2002, two thirds of the conflict related civilian deaths have been caused by extrajudicial killings, said North East Secretariat on Human Rights (NESoHR) in a press statement issued on Tuesday. Stating that the assessment was a moderate attempt to throw some light on the phenomenon of extrajudicial killings, the NESoHR said it was intriguing that the extrajudicial killings take place while the Sri Lankan police and judicial system are operating in Sri Lanka Army (SLA) controlled territories in North-East and elsewhere in Southern Sri Lanka.
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Sri Lanka in "Genocide Red Alert" watch list

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 09 December 2008, 12:41 GMT]
New York-based Genocide Prevention Project in a report to be published Tuesday includes Sri Lanka as one of the eight "red alert" countries where genocide and other mass atrocities are underway or risk breaking out. A comprehensive list of 33 countries is also contained in the report. Tuesday marks the 60th anniversary of the United Nation's convention on the prevention of genocide, and 20th anniversary of U.S's ratification of the treaty.
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Tamil Nadu leaders condemn derogatory talk of Fonseka

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 09 December 2008, 00:40 GMT]
Political leaders of Tamil Nadu, including Chief Minister Kalaignar M. Karunanidhi, condemned Monday Sri Lanka Army (SLA) Chief Lt. Gen. Sarath Fonseka for his derogatory comments on Tamil Nadu leaders in an interview to a Sri Lankan state-owned newspaper on Sunday. Vaiko, the General Secretary of the MDMK has announced a protest in front of the Sri Lankan Deputy High Commission in Chennai on December 10 demanding unconditional apology from the Sri Lankan Commander-in-Chief Mahinda Rajapaksa and the Army Chief Sarath Fonseka to the latter's astonishing remarks in the Sunday Observer newspaper.
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