Moral support to Tigers not a crime –Thirumavalavan

[TamilNet, Monday, 17 December 2007, 16:49 GMT]
Extending moral support to the Liberation Tigers, on seeing the Tamils' sufferings in Sri Lanka was not a crime in any way, said Thol. Thirumavalavan, General Secretary of the Tamilnadu-based Viduthalai Chiruthhaika'l Kadchi (VCK, the Liberation Panthers party) according to news reports published in The New Indian Express, Monday. He added that providing moral support to the Tamil Tigers was not an offence even in countries like the UK, the US and Canada, where the organization is banned. "Tamils in these countries are conducting rallies, unveiling Pirapaharan's portrait and also running a radio service in their favour," he said.
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VoT will rebounce from attack -Thamizhanpan

[TamilNet, Sunday, 16 December 2007, 22:43 GMT]
“Belligerent statements by close associates of Sri Lanka President Rajapaksa, threats against media personnel, and press censorship in the South, forewarned us of a possible attack on our media facilities. Fortunately, we took precautions against this, and our successful completion of the Heroes day program, inspite of Colombo violating international laws bombing our facility, is a testimony to the resilience of our staff,” said Thamizhanpan, director of Voice of Tigers, LTTE’s official broadcasting corporation, in an interview with a Australian Tamil Broadcasting Corporation, Tuesday.
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Colombo's anti-terror laws assist killings, abductions, torture- MRG

[TamilNet, Saturday, 15 December 2007, 19:32 GMT]
Minority Rights Groups International (MRG), an accredited non Governmental organization with the United Nations, in a report released Thursday said, after the promulgation of broad anti-terror laws in December 2006, Sri Lanka "has not hesitated to use these laws, and the country's human rights situation deteriorated. Under a general climate of impunity, 2007 has largely been marked by intense warfare, mass displacement, killings, abductions and torture in Sri Lanka."
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India armed rival groups as Tigers disarmed – IPKF General

[TamilNet, Saturday, 15 December 2007, 18:39 GMT]
Rajiv Gandhi, the then Prime Minister of India, ordered an Indian General to kill LTTE leader Vellupillai Pirapaharan in cold blood when the latter attended a meeting under a white flag in September 1987. In a new book, the then chief of the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF), Major General (retd.) Harkirat Singh, says he refused to carry out the order as “good soldiers do not shoot an adversary in the back.” He also says that as the Tigers began disarming in 1987, but India’s intelligence service, RAW, on Rajiv Gandhi’s orders, began arming anti-LTTE militant groups, triggering inter-Tamil violence.
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Eelam demand came well before LTTE - paper

[TamilNet, Friday, 14 December 2007, 16:41 GMT]
The international community’s continued insistence on reinforcing the state in Sri Lanka is intensifying the cycle of Sinhala oppression and, thus, Tamil resistance, the Tamil Guardian newspaper said this week in an editorial subtitled “the international community mistakenly hopes war [against the LTTE] will bring peace to Sri Lanka.” Pointing out that that Tamil demand for Eelam emerged in the seventies through the TULF, well before the LTTE’s armed struggle escalated, the paper said the Tamils’ “insistence on Eelam is not some romantic whim, but a longstanding expression of rejection of Sinhala rule.”
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Stung by rights criticism, Sri Lanka summons US, UK, EU and other ambassadors

[TamilNet, Friday, 14 December 2007, 16:31 GMT]
Sri Lanka's militaristic government said Friday it had hauled in the envoys of countries calling for UN human rights monitoring of the island's dirty war against the Tamil Tigers, AFP reported. The ambassadors of the United States, the European Union, France, Korea and Sweden were summoned for a dressing down by foreign ministry secretary Palitha Kohona, AFP quoted the ministry as saying. Diplomats from Canada and the Netherlands will also be summoned Friday, the ministry said, adding a complaint over remarks made at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva this week will be forwarded to New Zealand's Delhi-based envoy.
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Pirapaharan pays homage to Anton Balasingham

[TamilNet, Friday, 14 December 2007, 14:13 GMT]
Velupillai Pirapaharan, the leader of the Liberation Tigers of Tamileelam, Friday payed homage to late Anton Balasingham, the theoretician and political advisor of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), commemorating the first death anniversary of the former chief negotiator and political advisor.
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3 Tamil civilians arrested in Uddapu, Gampaha

[TamilNet, Thursday, 13 December 2007, 19:06 GMT]
The Police took into custody three Tamil civilians in two separate cordon and search operations conducted at Uddapu in Chilaw district and Gampaha town in Colombo district Wednesday. Police said they were detained in police stations as they failed to prove their identity and valid reason for the their stay in the locality.
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Nadesan calls for attitudinal shift in rights approach

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 11 December 2007, 13:17 GMT]
The Government of Sri Lanka remained unperturbed despite severe criticism from U.N representatives who had visited the island and confirmed the large-scale violation of human rights against Tamils, because it continued to receive military and monetary aid from those who actually condemn the human rights violations, charged Liberation Tigers Political Head B. Nadesan, Monday, on the International Human Rights Day. Declaring that the human rights violations by the GoSL in SLA-controlled areas was nothing short of a "systematic genocide of the Tamils," he called upon the International Community to use "severe pressure" against Colombo to put an end to the flagrant violation of human rights.
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Court orders release of all Tamil detainees

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 11 December 2007, 04:53 GMT]
The Sri Lanka's Supreme Court Monday directed the Attorney General (AG) to release all 361 Tamil civilians detained in Boosa detention camp on bail immediately. The court further instructed the AG to make arrangement to release all Tamil civilians now in remand on personal bail instead of cash bail, legal sources said.
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UK: LTTE must change its ways, no intervention in Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Monday, 10 December 2007, 22:10 GMT]
The British High Commissioner to Sri Lanka, Dominick Chilcott, said Monday that President Mahinda Rajapakse must make an offer acceptable to moderate Tamils because the LTTE would not accept a negotiated solution within a united Sri Lanka. Mr. Chilcott accepted, however, that the President had to be able to “sell the solution” to the majority Sinhalese. The international community has no plans to intervene in Sri Lanka to exercise the responsibility to protect, he further said.
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American Tamils observe Tamils Memorial Day

[TamilNet, Monday, 10 December 2007, 11:53 GMT]
Several hundred expatriate American Tamils from New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Connecticut attended the Tamils Memorial Day was held in Edison, New Jersey on Sunday December 9th to pay tribute to those Tamils who gave their lives in the struggle for Tamils national self determination.
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Vaiko writes to Indian PM, alleges SLN - Indian Navy nexus

[TamilNet, Sunday, 09 December 2007, 19:10 GMT]
Vaiko, General Secretary of the Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam in India dashed off a letter to the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh alleging "a nefarious nexus between Sri Lankan Navy (SLN) and Indian Navy" after an Indian naval official declared that SLN was not guilty of deliberately killing Indian fishermen. Mr Vaiko also appealed to Mr Singh to "stop forthwith the supply of arms to Sri Lanka and withdraw the radars already supplied and give instructions to the officers of the Indian Navy not to pursue the nefarious game" of collaborating with the SLN. His three-page letter was released to the media on Sunday.
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122 Tamils arrested in Kaduruvwela

[TamilNet, Sunday, 09 December 2007, 11:04 GMT]
The Sri Lanka Army (SLA) and police, in a combined cordon and search operation conducted at Kaduruvwela in Pollonarruwa Sunday morning from 9 a.m. till noon, took into custody about 122 Tamil residents. They are being detained in Pollonaruwa police station and being interrogated by the Terrorist Intelligence Division, according to sources in Pollannaruwa.
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Court allows inquiry into CWC's FR petition against mass arrests

[TamilNet, Friday, 07 December 2007, 12:02 GMT]
Sri Lanka's Supreme Court Friday granted permission to the Ceylon Workers Congress to proceed with its Fundamental Rights Violation petition against the alleged illegal arrest and detention of thousands of Tamil citizens without valid reason and reasonable suspicion recently carried out in Colombo and its suburbs by the law enforcement authorities.
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CWC files FR petition against mass arrest, detention of Tamils

[TamilNet, Thursday, 06 December 2007, 19:43 GMT]
The Ceylon Workers Congress (CWC) Thursday filed a Fundamental Rights Violation petition in the Supreme Court seeking the court to prevent further arrest and detention of Tamil people without any valid reason and reasonable suspicion. This is the second FR violation petition filed in the Supreme Court against the mass arrest and detention of Tamil residents. The first FR petition was filed Tuesday by the Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA), sources said.
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FR petition filed against illegal arrest, detention of Tamils

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 05 December 2007, 13:30 GMT]
The Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA) based in Colombo Tuesday filed a Fundamental Rights Violation petition in the Sri Lanka's Supreme Court seeking to prevent Tamil citizens being arrested without any valid reason and reasonable suspicion. The petition has also sought the Supreme Court to formulate a set of guidelines directing the law enforcement authorities in how to deal with the arrest and detention of persons, legal sources said.
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Rights groups condemn "Collective Punishment"

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 04 December 2007, 16:25 GMT]
Center for Policy Alternatives (CPA), a Colombo-based think-tank, and the Free Media Movement (FMM), a media watch group in Colombo, are considering taking legal action against Sri Lanka authorities for the mass arrest of more than 2000 Tamils in suburbs of Colombo this week, media reports in Colombo said. The arrests were made after the Government of Sri Lanka accused the Liberation Tigers of carrying out the two bomb attacks that killed 21 people and injured more than 40 in Colombo.
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NPC condemns mass arrests in Colombo

[TamilNet, Monday, 03 December 2007, 14:42 GMT]
"Hundreds of Tamils residing in Colombo have been arrested in a crackdown reminiscent of the attempt to evict temporary Tamil residents from Colombo in June this year," said National Peace Council, a Colombo based peace group, in a press release issued on Monday. "The people who have been arrested include women with children. Some of them are Tamil workers from the central hills who have been living in Colombo for many years. When they are arrested in this manner, they stand to lose their livelihoods for which they do not obtain compensation. Others are people who have left the north and east where they cannot live peacefully and safely due to the war conditions in that part of the country."
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Colombo lacks sincerity in investigating Fr. Jim Brown's disappearance - Jaffna Bishop

[TamilNet, Monday, 03 December 2007, 12:05 GMT]
The Bishop of Jaffna, Rt. Rev. Thomas Saundranayagam, who is on a mission to Vanni, on Sunday said that the manner in which Colombo was handling the investigation on the disappearance of Rev. Fr. Jim Brown, seemed like an eyewash exercise without any sincerity, being conducted to "hoodwink the International Community" into believing that investigation was continuing. "Two weeks ago, a CID officer from Colombo came to meet me. He only knew Sinhala. I was shocked to realize how he could conduct investigations without working knowledge in Tamil and English to collect evidence on the disappearance of Fr. Brown," the Bishop said while briefing media on the prevailing situation in Jaffna.
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