Tamil applicants discriminated in civil service: Inter-religious group in Ampaa'rai

[TamilNet, Saturday, 18 December 2010, 15:01 GMT]
Only one of 29 new recruits appointed to Tamil-speaking divisional secretariats was a Tamil person from the region, complained Ampaa'rai District Inter-Religious Federation in a statement issued this week warning ethnic discrimination in government appointments in Ampaa'rai. The group warned that appointing Sinhalese to fill the vacancies in government departments and offices in Tamil areas would complicate the already strained relations.
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Self-employed Tamil reported missing in Vavuniyaa

[TamilNet, Saturday, 18 December 2010, 14:26 GMT]
A 24-year-old self-employed Tamil in Vavuniyaa, Tharmaraj Tharmendra, who used to travel to the towns of Mannaar, Vavuniyaa, Trincomalee and Colombo, selling products, has been reported missing since September 06, 2010, according to his relatives who were seeking help from those who have been in touch with the victim in various towns.
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Tamil boy in Batticaloa wounded in gunfire by Sinhala policemen on meat hunting

[TamilNet, Saturday, 18 December 2010, 11:40 GMT]
A 13-year-old Tamil boy who was playing near Karaveddi playground on Tuesday was hit by gunfire by Sinhala policemen who were on meat hunting 5 km west of Batticaloa town. Policemen on hunting have been firing indiscriminately on animals in the area causing panic among the civilians who live in the hamlets. The injured boy, Baskaran Vijayakumar, a 9th grade student at Naavatkaadu Naamaka'l Viththiyaalayam, has been admitted at the Batticaloa Teaching Hospital. Policemen targeting pigs in the jungle area use automatic rifles and fire several rounds, the civilians in the area complain adding that the residents in the densely populated areas have been hit by gunfire also on earlier occasions.
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Canadian Tamil submission to UN focuses on international investigation

[TamilNet, Friday, 17 December 2010, 14:54 GMT]
From Nuremburg to Rwanda, precedents have been set to indict those who were individually responsible for war crimes. The precedent of individual accountability is a guiding principle in upholding international law, says the war crimes submission of the National Council of Canadian Tamils (NCCT) to the UN advisory panel on Sri Lanka. 26 organizations and parliamentarians, ranging from trade unions and university students associations to Conservative, Liberal and New Democratic parliamentarians, including the leader of the New Democratic Party of Canada, Jack Layton, have endorsed the NCCT submission. The submission, extensively dealing with intentional targeting of Tamil civilians by the Sri Lankan state and arguing for an international inquiry, pointed out that there would be no lasting peace without justice.
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India-China contention benefits Kashmiris, Tibetans

[TamilNet, Friday, 17 December 2010, 07:32 GMT]
Since China has started issuing special visas to Kashmiris, India retaliated by not declaring Tibet as a part of China in the joint statement of the prime ministers of both the countries after their meet in New Delhi, Wednesday and Thursday. For the last 30 years as a prerequisite for dialogue with China, at every meet of both the countries India was reiterating its official position that Tibet was part of China. The long oppressed and suffocating Himalayan states, hemmed between the two powers, could see new light if the states and the concerned peoples concertedly come forward to intelligently negotiate the unfolding equation between the two powers, political analysts on South Asia said.
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Fox cancels trip amid Sri Lanka War Crimes accusations

[TamilNet, Friday, 17 December 2010, 02:03 GMT]
Liam Fox, the British defence secretary whose friendship with Sri Lanka's President has been in the news during Rajapakse's visit to the UK early this month, was tonight forced to abandon a private visit to Sri Lanka this weekend after a row with William Hague, who feared that Fox would upset Britain's carefully balanced approach to Colombo, UK Guardian reported.
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WikiLeaks: Gotabaya sanctioned extra-judicial killings by Paramilitaries

[TamilNet, Friday, 17 December 2010, 01:08 GMT]
A WikiLeaks cable, dated 18th May 2007 from US embassy in Colombo, accuses Defense Secretary Gotabaya Rajapakse of giving orders to Sri Lanka Army (SLA) commanders in Jaffna not to interfere with Tamil paramilitaries who are "doing "work" that the military cannot do because of international scrutiny. The work referred to in the cable includes extra-judicial killings, extortion, abduction and prostitution by the Tamil paramilitary groups EPDP and Karuna Group. Both groups are led by Ministers in the present ruling Government in Sri Lanka.
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Chief priest fired at by SLA gun succumbs to injuries

[TamilNet, Thursday, 16 December 2010, 20:15 GMT]
The chief priest of Changkaanai Murukamoorthy temple, Nithiyananda Sharma, 56, fatally fired at in a robbery in the temple last week, died in the hospital Wednesday. The gun used in the firing belongs to the SLA, admits SLA military commander for Jaffna, Maj. General Mahinda Hathurusinghe. Briefing media in Jaffna, he said that two former LTTE members working closely with the SLA were responsible for the firing. But independent sources in Jaffna said that the two accused belong to the military intelligence of SLA. There were three who were involved in the firing cum robbery incident, according to witnesses.
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Tamil woman reported missing in Vavuniyaa

[TamilNet, Thursday, 16 December 2010, 14:35 GMT]
Jeyaseelan Praveena, 27, of Kuruma'nkaadu in Vavuniyaa district has been reported missing since Tuesday morning. Praveena who was employed as a management assistant in the Vavuniyaa District Secretariat, left for work on Tuesday morning but her mother was informed by the Secretariat officials that her daughter had not reported for work till 9.30 am the same day, according to the complaint lodged with the Vavuniyaa Police by her mother, Mahendrarani Jeyaseelan.
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SLA blocks use of Vadamaraadchi East road publicized as open

[TamilNet, Thursday, 16 December 2010, 14:12 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) continues to block civilians from using the Point Pedro-Maruthangkea'ni Road that passes through Naakarkoayil in Vadamaraadchi East even after publicizing that the said road was to be open for public. A journalist who works for the Jaffna Tamil daily "Valampuri" has complained to the Jaffna Human Rights Commission that he was stopped at the SLA checkpoint at the Maruthangkea'ni bridge and was turned back without being allowed to proceed to his native village of Chempiyanpattu, civil sources in Jaffna said.
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'Post-Tsunami failure of Co-Chairs promoted Colombo on genocidal war path'

[TamilNet, Thursday, 16 December 2010, 12:02 GMT]
The main event of remembering the victims of 26 December 2004 that claimed the lives of 41,000 people in the island, most of the victims from eastern and northern coasts of the Tamil homeland, is to be held at Veerasingkam Hall in Jaffna. Around 1.5 million people lost their homes in the Tsunami. Most of the victims along the coastal belts of Vanni and elsewhere have been denied of proper resettlement as Colombo waged a genocidal war on them, killing and maiming thousands of the Tsunami victims. The West, which had equal humanitarian access to North-East as well as to the South, failed to course correct the Sri Lankan state in addressing the post-Tsunami reconstruction. Instead, it relied upon appeasement tactics towards Colombo at that time and is still harping on the same string, said TamilNet commentator in Colombo responding to the latest comment by US spokesman, P J Crowley.
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Tamil media group, parliamentarian condemn attack on Batticaloa journalist

[TamilNet, Thursday, 16 December 2010, 07:00 GMT]
Independent East Media Forum, a Tamil media group in the East, condemned the attack on Tamil journalist Manikapody Sasikumar, the correspondent of Thinakkural paper in Batticaloa by a group of unidentified persons. The attack cannot be considered as an act against an individual but on the whole media community in the district. The law enforcement authority should bring the culprits behind the attack to courts, the IEMF further said in its statement. Meanwhile, Batticaloa District Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian P.Ariyanethran also condemned the attack on Mr. Sasikumar.
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Southern traders reaching Mannaar reveal organised activity

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 15 December 2010, 21:20 GMT]
Pavement traders and hawkers occupying the streets of Mannaar amidst the objections from the local Tamil-speaking business owners on Wednesday revealed that they were being sent by a group of agents operating in the south when they were confronted by the secretary of the Urban Council of Mannaar with complaints from Mannaar traders.
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Southern street vendors invade Mannaar city, local businessmen complain

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 15 December 2010, 15:18 GMT]
More than 250 Sinhala street vendors from south have occupied both the sides of the Muttave'li and Muslim street near the Mannaar townhall during the last 7 days illegally competing with the local businesses, complained the Tamil-speaking shop owners to the town concil authorities on Tuesday.
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Colombo directs closure of Northern UN, ICRC offices

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 15 December 2010, 11:45 GMT]
Following directives from Sri Lanka Government authorities to close the branch offices of the United Nation agencies and the International Committtee of Red Cross (ICRC) in the North, these agencies are reducing the number of staff, civil society sources in Jaffna said. UNICEF, UNHCR, UNDP, and WFP offices are said to be affected by the directive from Colombo. A number of offices of the said organizations in Vanni area have already ceased operations. Meanwhile, British Members of Parliament raised concerns on the closure of the ICRC offices in Jaffna.
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Colombo cripples traders in Jaffna to bring in Sinhala trade

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 14 December 2010, 22:20 GMT]
The Government of Sri Lanka is alleged to have been involved in crippling the business activities of the Tamil traders in Jaffna peninsula to make way for the Sinhalese to capture it, Jaffna traders who have been subjected to harassment by officers from Criminal Investigation Department of Colombo Police.
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SLA chases away uprooted families in Ki'linochchi suburb

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 14 December 2010, 07:24 GMT]
The Sri Lanka Army has chased away a group of uprooted Tamil families when they went to temporarily reside in their own buildings in Ponnakar village, located 1.5 km in the Karaichchi DS division in Ki'linochchi district, after their temporary huts provided in low-lying lands were submerged in the floods earlier this month. They were told by the SLA to find other places than their own buildings even if it was for a temporary period of time till they were able to return to their huts. Ponnakar village is located 1.5 k.m south of Kil'linochchi town.
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War crimes ignored in East, focus urged on ‘killings’ at Eastern University

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 14 December 2010, 07:09 GMT]
While the war raged in Vanni war front, Sri Lanka Army deployed paramilitary operatives with close link to Rajapaksa quarters in Colombo, killing a female hostel warden and two female Tamil students from Vanni at the Eastern University in February and March 2009, journalists from Batticaloa said citing information from ex-paramilitary personnel and naming a key operative in Vaazhaichcheanai in Batticaloa with close links to Rajapaksa's cabinet as the man who carried out the orders from the top. In the meantime, a 54-year-old man from Paa'ndiruppu linked to Iniyapaarathi, the most feared operative of Karuna group, was found dead Friday hanging inside a building used by the group earlier.
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JDS: State sponsored brutality against opposition

[TamilNet, Monday, 13 December 2010, 14:43 GMT]
Noting that "State sponsored violence against dissenting voices in Sri Lanka" is on the increase, Journalist for Democracy in Sri Lanka (JDS), an exciled group of Sri Lankan journalists, said in a press release issued Sunday that JDS unreservedly condemned attacks on journalists who "went to cover the arrival of the Nava Sama Samaja Party (NSSP) General Secretary, Dr. Vickramabahu Karunaratne, from the United Kingdom," and called upon "all forces both within Sri Lanka and abroad who cherish freedom and democracy to do what they can to stop this extremely dangerous trend that threatens democracy."
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Tamil journalist attacked in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Sunday, 12 December 2010, 18:53 GMT]
An unidentified three person gang attacked a Tamil journalist Manikkapody Sasikumar, 35, in Batticaloa district, Sunday night around 7.30 p.m., causing severe injuries on his hands and head, according to reports reaching Colombo media. Sasikumar was admitted to the Batticaloa Teaching Hospital for treatment.
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