Sinhala professors file petitions challenging the amended Local Elections Bill

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 27 October 2010, 16:51 GMT]
Two professors of Sri Lanka Peradeniya University have filed petitions in the Supreme Court separately seeking the court to declare the amended Local Government Authority Bill is contrary to the constitution. The petitioners Professors Navaratna Bandara and Ranjit Amerasinghe have named the Attorney General as the respondent.
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White van armed gang abducts Tamil Nadu traders in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 27 October 2010, 16:41 GMT]
An armed gang alleged to be operating with the Intelligence Unit of Sri Lanka Army (SLA) abducted Wednesday early morning the textile traders from Tamil Nadu staying in the lodges in Jaffna town, sources in Jaffna said. The abducted traders had not been produced in any of the court or police station in Jaffna peninsula until Wednesday night. The whereabouts of the abducted traders and their fate remains unknown.
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Undergrad Buddhist monks allegedly attack university officials

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 27 October 2010, 13:51 GMT]
A group of monk undergraduates of the Sri Jayawardenepura University in Colombo allegedly attacked some university officials, accompanying Vice Chancellor Dr. N. L. A. Karunaratne, when they visited the monk hostel on Sunday night, The Island reported Monday. According to the Vice Chancellor, the attack took place when he and the officials visited the hostel to inquire on a complaint they had received from the people of the area that their children could not study at night due to the din from the hostel.
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SLA, SLN take over lands of Muslims in Trincomalee district

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 27 October 2010, 09:45 GMT]
Several acres of land belonging to members of Muslim community located in villages of Pulmoaddai, I’raakka’ndi, Nilaave’li and Pudaivaikkaddu in the north of the Trincomalee district are still under the control of the Sri Lanka Navy (SLN). In Moothoor area several acres of lands belonging to Muslim farmers are still in the custody of the SLN. Hence farmers and fishermen of this community are not allowed to engage in their livelihood activities which have come to a standstill even after the war is over, R. M. Anwer, a councilor of the Eastern Provincial Council (EPC), said.
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Sinhala fishermen invade Mannaar assisted by SLA

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 27 October 2010, 08:13 GMT]
Sinhala fishermen from South Sri Lanka are allowed by Sri Lanka Army (SLA) occupying Mannaar district to fish in Mu’l’likku’lam reservoir located in the area where local residents uprooted during war are not permitted by SLA to resettle, sources in Mannaar said. Hundreds of Sinhala fishermen from South with six cooler vehicles stay in Mu’l’likku’lam area and drain the tank dry of fish which they take to the South. Brigadier Nisanka Ranawana, the Commander of SLA 61 Division in Mannaar, is alleged to be the person who is instrumental in allowing the Sinhala fishermen to fish in Mannaar, the sources added. The sale of the catch from Mannaar sold in South brings quite a large amount of profit in the venture.
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Tamil Nadu daily questions lack of solidarity from Indian opposition on ban controversy

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 26 October 2010, 08:21 GMT]
Dinamani, a leading newspaper in Tamil Nadu in its editorial last Friday crticised major opposition political parties in India for not voicing for the Tamil people as the judge presiding over the last three debating sessions of the Special Tribunal to examine the legality of extension of ban on Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) had rejected any others except the LTTE to present their case while the ban on the LTTE is continously used as a pretext to arrest Tamil activists. The paper also questioned whether the Indian government would guarantee [former] LTTE members [from other countries] to appear before the Tribunal without facing arrest in India and present their case.
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SL government fails to help renovation of war destructed Saiva temples

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 26 October 2010, 06:22 GMT]
“Sri Lanka government has done nothing to help to renovate the places of worship of Tamil people destroyed during tsunami and war in the North and East,” Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Batticaloa parliamentarian Pon. Selvarasa said speaking at an event in Thaazhangkudaa Sri Periyathampiraan temple in Batticaloa district. “Only five percent of the 500,000 rupees allocated by SL government to each parliamentarian under the annual budget could be spent on renovating temples. The requests by temple administrators to renovate their temples cannot be fulfilled by us completely,” Selvarasa said.
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SLA soldiers chase away resettled Tamil families in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 26 October 2010, 05:41 GMT]
Nearly a hundred Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers chased away Monday night more than fifty Tamil families who had returned after fifteen years to resettle in their lands in Vasanthapuram village in Ma’niam Thoaddam area located within Jaffna Municipal Council limits, sources in Jaffna said. The Sinhala families from South who had recently come to Jaffna seeking resettlement demand to be settled in Ma’niam Thoaddam which they claim as the lands of ancient Sinhala people, the sources added. The uprooted Tamil families had come to their lands Saturday and begun constructing sheds to live in.
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Media and state crimes

[TamilNet, Monday, 25 October 2010, 19:31 GMT]
“You don’t say or even think that the invasion of Iraq is a criminal aggression of the kind for which people were hanged in Nuremberg […]. Suppose a newspaper started publishing the truth—that the invasion of Iraq was a criminal invasion that destroyed the country, that newspaper or the TV station is not going to get any ads”, said 82-year-old Noam Chomsky in an interview to India’s Outlook, Saturday. Meanwhile, WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange, making his most brazen disclosure – 391,832 secret documents on the Iraqi war, is a hunted man by the world’s Establishments, reports The New York Times, Saturday. “You play outside the rules, and you will be dealt with outside the rules,” Mr. Assange an Australian national was told by an Australian official.
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TNPF opposes new local government elections bill

[TamilNet, Monday, 25 October 2010, 05:15 GMT]
Former Jaffna district parliamentarian Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam said that Tamil National People’s Front (TNPF) would oppose the proposed new local government elections bill by Sri Lanka government in a press briefing held at the party office in Jaffna Sunday. Meanwhile, Tamil National Alliance (TNA) which had also expressed its strong opposition to the said bill will file a petition against it Monday in the High Court, according to the announcement made by TNA Jaffna parliamentarian Mavai Senathirajah.
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Sri Lankan state paper highlights 'return' of Tamil refugees from India

[TamilNet, Sunday, 24 October 2010, 17:32 GMT]
67 refugees who fled to India during the war, have returned on October 21st, 2010, the state owned Dinamina newspaper said Sunday in a front page article. Meanwhile, Tamil refugees in Tamil Nadu say they find themselves in a desperate situation either to face a long term genocide in the island by returning to the island to safeguard their lands from the Sinhala Army of colonisation. Informed media circles in Colombo said New Delhi was negotiating with Colombo on returning Tamil refugees.
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Jury finds Singaporean guilty of material support to FTO

[TamilNet, Sunday, 24 October 2010, 14:42 GMT]
Baltimore, Maryland jury Monday returned a guilty verdict on Balraj Naidu, a Singaporean tried in the US Federal Court for "providing material support" to a foreign terrorist organization (FTO), after a trial that lasted four days. Sentencing is scheduled for 16th of December. Before being extradited to the U.S., Singaporean Government arrested Balraj and later released him dropping all arms procurement charges. The FBI listed the out come of the trial as one of the top ten news stories for the week.
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TID arrests DPF trade union secretary

[TamilNet, Sunday, 24 October 2010, 11:36 GMT]
Sri Lanka Terrorist Investigations Department (TID) arrested L. Barathithasan, Trade Union Secretary of the Democratic Peoples Front (DPF) Saturday allegedly for aiding the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. A team of the TID in charge of the Central Province took him to custody and brought him to TID headquarters in Colombo for interrogation, police said.
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Aayiththiyamalai

[TamilNet, Sunday, 24 October 2010, 07:42 GMT]
The hill of a kind of mineral-rock
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Unruly Sinhala tourists storm into Jaffna Public Library

[TamilNet, Sunday, 24 October 2010, 05:00 GMT]
A group of Sinhala visitors from South on Saturday stormed into Jaffna Library while the All Ceylon Medical Association sessions were in progress. The group was from the Sinhala tourists who arrived Saturday in more than 30 buses at the main entrance of Jaffna Public Library. Despite a sign board in three languages – Sinhala, Tamil and English on display that no visitors will be allowed during the usual visiting hours (4:30 p.m to 6:30 p.m) due to the conference, the Sinhala visitors had demanded the security guard and the only unarmed policeman to allow them in, an eyewitness told TamilNet. Following heated argument the visitors smashed the sign board and overpowered the guard and stormed into the library where the seminar was in progress. The seminar which began Friday is to continue until Sunday.
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Paintings depicting horror of war on Vanni draw large crowds in Tamil Nadu

[TamilNet, Saturday, 23 October 2010, 21:24 GMT]
A collection of paintings by Artist Kuzhanthaivelu Pugazhenthi titled ‘The Faces of War’, depicting the horror experienced by Eezham Tamils in its Fourth War and the heroic sacrifice and valour of Liberation Tigers, was exhibited in several places in Tamil Nadu from 11 May till September, beginning in Chennai. The exhibition was later held in Thanjaavoor and Thiruchchi drawing large crowds of people who also took part in the political seminars conducted at the venues of the exhibition. The French Cultural Centre in Chennai which usually caters to the upper class society which had first exhibited the paintings for ten days later extended it for another ten days due to the unexpected welcome shown by the people of Chennai, sources in Chennai said.
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SLA reluctant to disclose information of LTTE detainees in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Saturday, 23 October 2010, 06:03 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army did not disclose the number of ex-combatants of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) still held in the SLA special detention camp located in its High Security Zone in Thellippazhai in Jaffna when it allowed 23 female Liberation Tiger ex-combatants to join their families Friday evening. Sri Lanka Minister of Rehabilitation & Prison Reforms D. E. W. Gunasekara who was the chief guest in the Friday event said that the released ex-combatants had undergone vocational training, sources in Jaffna said. However, SLA is reluctant to reveal the number of LTTE ex-combatants still held in the SLA special detainment camp. Families of the detainees still held in the special camp are in a state of anxiety and fear as they do not know of their fate, the sources added.
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Tissainayagam speaks at 2010 Mackler Award ceremony

[TamilNet, Saturday, 23 October 2010, 02:31 GMT]
2009 recipient of the prestigious Peter Mackler Award, Tamil journalist J.S. Tissainayagam, who was incarcerated in Sri Lanka prison for his writing, and was unable to receive the award in 2009, spoke at the 2010 Award ceremony held Friday at 6:00 p.m. at the National Press Club in Washington D.C. Tissainayagam was announced as the Award's first recipient on August 31, 2009, the same day he was convicted on terrorism charges relating to his work as a journalist. 2010 Mackler award winner is a 24-year old Russian, Ilya Barabanov, the deputy editor of the New Times, an opposition magazine in Russia. Tissainayagam was previously hailed by US President Barack Obama as an "emblematic example" of journalists who are persecuted for their craft.
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Millennium old Tamil inscription found in Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Saturday, 23 October 2010, 00:53 GMT]
A stone slab having a Tamil inscription, clearly in the alphabet of the Chola times, was found in Trincomalee while digging for cricket stadium construction work recently. The land where it was found is a part of the esplanade, on the right side of the Koa’neasvaram Road leading to the Siva temple inside Fort Frederick and is adjacent to the bay where the temple’s Theerththam (water cutting) ritual is held. Sometimes back, a Buddhist Vihara and another structure called Sanghamitta Buddhist Rest were constructed at this place. The inscribed slab was taken into possession by the Trincomalee police and was sent to the Department of Archaeology in Colombo.
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Manmohan Singh unworthy to open “Little India” in Kuala Lumpur – MMSP

[TamilNet, Friday, 22 October 2010, 06:03 GMT]
The Malaysia Makkal Sakthi Party (MMSP) Youth Wing said that it does not want Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to open the “Little India” in Brickfields, Kuala Lumpur, according Free Malaysia Today (FMT) news report Wednesday. N. Ramu, the Youth Wing’s chief said that Manmohan was not the right person because of his government’s failure to protect the Tamils in Sri Lanka, the report said. “We feel that the New Delhi administration virtually did nothing to protect Sri Lankan Tamils. He just folded his hands and watched thousands of Tamils being killed,” Ramu had said.
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