EP Education Ministry administered by Sinhalese officers - CTU

[TamilNet, Monday, 05 October 2009, 03:48 GMT]
Ceylon Teachers’ Union (CTU) pointed out in a memorandum sent to the President Mahinda Rajapakse Saturday that the development of education in the Eastern Province where Tamil speaking people are in majority is in the hands of three Sinhalese officers who hold the three top posts in EP provincial education ministry. The provincial minister of education is also a Sinhalese, CTU said.
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British MP urges boycott of Sri Lanka goods

[TamilNet, Friday, 02 October 2009, 12:14 GMT]
Siobhain McDonagh MP, Mictham & Morden, UK, during the Labor Party conference held Thursday appealed to the delegates, and to the millions of live TV viewers, to shoulder their own commitment on the Sri Lanka issue, urging that a boycott of goods and avoiding holidays in the unsavory state would ensure their money would not “prop up that government.” During the event, the sitting government party passed a resolution condemning the treatment of Tamils in the island by that government.
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Internment, poisoning hopes of reconciliation - Economist

[TamilNet, Friday, 02 October 2009, 05:29 GMT]
"The fate of a quarter of a million interned Tamils is poisoning Sri Lanka’s hopes of ethnic reconciliation....So long as Tamils feel abused by a racist Sinhalese state, the conflict may resume. Economic development of their shattered regions, which the government is planning, is unlikely to change that. Hence the government’s continued war-footing—but this is in turn also reinforcing Tamil grievances," a feature in the 1st October edition of The Economist said,
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Former LTTE leaders likely to be used for Colombo-US formula

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 30 September 2009, 00:34 GMT]
Unconfirmed reports indicate that some noted LTTE leaders in the custody of Colombo are likely to be made to collaborate a Colombo-US formula of ‘reconciliation,’ nullifying national aspirations of Eezham Tamils. The recent visit of Colombo’s defense secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa and foreign minister Rohita Bogollagama to the US was in fact aimed to discuss the details, sources in Colombo said. The visiting delegation also wanted to strike a ‘deal’ with the US on handling the LTTE cadres and suspects in its prison camps, the sources further said. Meanwhile, the war crimes report scheduled to be released by the U.S. State Department to the U.S. Congress on 21st September is delayed, allegedly due to ‘Gotabhaya involvement’, according to a report by the Inner City Press.
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US Group opposes GSP+ extension

[TamilNet, Monday, 28 September 2009, 03:59 GMT]
In a submission to the Chairperson of Human Rights Subcommission of the European Union (EU), Ms. Heidi Hautala, US-based pressure group Tamils Against Genocide (TAG) said that the EU should terminate GSP+ privileges to Sri Lanka especially after the "failure of the UN system to uphold international human rights and humanitarian laws," and the "abdication of moral and diplomatic leadership by the UN Secretary General." The Subcommission is scheduled to meet on 1st October, and the decision on the status of the GSP+ to Sri Lanka is to be made on 15th October, according to sources in UK.
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Tissainayagam, a prisoner of conscience - paper, Amnesty

[TamilNet, Sunday, 27 September 2009, 15:48 GMT]
Arrested without a warrant, incarcerated without detention order, refused to see a lawyer for more than two weeks after arrest, denied privacy of conversation with his attorney and his wife while under detention, and held without charge for more than 5 months, and now sentenced by Sri Lanka's high court for 20 years in prison, Jayaprakash Sittampalam Tissainayagam, a Sri Lanka's Tamil journalist, "became a symbol of [Sri Lanka] government repression and a martyr for freedom of the press. To many observers, Tissainayagam’s treatment cemented Sri Lanka’s reputation as a totalitarian state in the making," Sunday Leader said in its weekend edition. Tissainayagam was chosen by President Obama as an emblematic example of persecuted journalists.
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Tamil Nadu fishermen assaulted, driven naked by Sri Lanka Navy

[TamilNet, Saturday, 26 September 2009, 17:34 GMT]
Twenty-four fishermen from Keechchaangkuppam in Naakarkoayil area in Tamil Nadu, fishing in Kanniyaakumari seas in five boats Friday night, were brutally assaulted and cast naked in the seas by Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) soldiers, sources in Naakarkoayil said. SLN soldiers had beaten the fishermen on their heads with the ice blocks taken by the fishermen to preserve their catch, the sources added. Fishermen in the coastal areas of Tamil Nadu saved the 24 fishermen who managed to swim ashore Saturday morning and admitted them in the local hospital, the sources further said.
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CPJ to honour Tamil journalist Tissainayagam

[TamilNet, Friday, 25 September 2009, 04:17 GMT]
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) will honour J.S. Tissainayagam as well as courageous journalists from Somalia, Tunisia and Azerbaijan with its 2009 International Press Freedom Awards at a ceremony in November. J.S. Tissainayagam was recently sentenced to 20 years in prison. "These are reporters who risk their personal freedom and often their lives to ensure that independent voices resonate within their nations and across the globe," CPJ Board Chairman Paul Steiger said.
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2 fishermen gone missing in Point Pedro sea

[TamilNet, Thursday, 24 September 2009, 03:55 GMT]
Two of the three fishermen who had gone fishing Sunday evening from Munai area in Point Pedro are reported missing due to a mishap in which their boat had capsized. The third fisherman who managed to swim ashore was saved by fishermen fishing in Kudaththanai area, sources in Point Pedro said.
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HRW: World leaders should demand end to Sri Lanka detention camps

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 23 September 2009, 02:08 GMT]
Human Rights Watch (HRW), a New York-based rights group, in a press release issued Tuesday, expressed concern "about a lack of protection mechanisms in the camps and the secret, incommunicado detention - and possible enforced disappearance - of suspected combatants. Poor conditions, overcrowding, and inadequate medical care increases the risk of serious health problems during the coming monsoon season," and noting that "the authorities are not being open and honest with camp residents about when they may go home, keeping them in a state of uncertainty and anxiety," urged the world leaders to demand an end to Sri Lanka 'detention camps."
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Colombo contemplates Malaysian model

[TamilNet, Monday, 21 September 2009, 22:36 GMT]
A participant in a study group that recently met in London cautioned that Colombo with the support of Asian powers is dreaming to follow Malaysian model of ethnic totalitarianism and related development model, ultimately aimed at erasing the territoriality of Eezham Tamil nation, bringing the entire island under Sinhala ethnic hegemony. “The Sri Lankan state has forgotten that even in the case with the 19th century Chinese migrants, after all the ethnic persecutions Malaysia had to finally concede secession of Singapore, to have peaceful development in the region. The Eezham Tamils who have right on the island ever since Sinhalese became Sinhalese need deserving justice and if Colombo thinks of Malaysia, who ever is going to support a Singapore in the island is going to have the say in the region,” commented another participant of the meet in London.
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Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs meets Tamil Diaspora group

[TamilNet, Thursday, 17 September 2009, 23:35 GMT]
Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs, Hon. Stephen Smith, participated in a meeting organised by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) with representatives of several Australian Tamil organisations and individuals, chaired by Mr. David Holly, the Assistant Secretary, South and West Asia Branch of the DFAT, sources in Australia said. Minister Smith explained his government’s approach to handling the conflict in Sri Lanka.
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Sanctions compel people to change their government’s conduct - paper

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 16 September 2009, 20:28 GMT]
Noting that “the logic of sanctions is simple: economic isolation of a state compels its discomforted people to pressure their leadership to change its behaviour and adhere to sought after international principles,” and that “it is especially on ultra-nationalist leaderships that rely on popular support, like President Mahinda Rajapsksa's government in Sri Lanka or former President Slobodan Milosevic's in Serbia, that sanctions can be most effective,” the Tamil Guardian newspaper this week said: “The international community can support the Sinhala state and hope for lasting peace or it can act to constrain Sinhala chauvinism and bring about one.”
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Court further remands 4 returnees from Fiji

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 16 September 2009, 11:09 GMT]
Colombo Chief Magistrate Nishantha Hapuarachchi Tuesday ordered further remand till September 22 for three Tamils and a Sinhalese who were arrested by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) officials at the Katunayake International Airport on their return from Fiji islands, rejecting their bail applications. CID told court said that the suspects had immigrated to the Fiji Islands for employment and the Fiji Islands authority had deported them.
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Colombo's paranoid secrecy

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 15 September 2009, 16:20 GMT]
"Why must the military be in control of the camps, why not civilian agencies? Why can't visitors enter the camps? Why are journalists barred? Why are international agencies kept out? Why is it taking the courts so long to make a straightforward order to allow members of parliament to visit the camps?" and quoting Mangala Samaraweera, "I can walk into any prison at will and meet any criminal, but I am not allowed to meet these people held in detention for no reason," Prof Kumar David, in an opinion column in Sunday's Lakbima, writes, "[t]he reasons offered for this paranoid secrecy varied from the need to hide human rights violations to calculations relating to the upcoming elections. I think it will be some time before the real reason comes seeping out."
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Rajapakses' incipient personality cult would shame a Chinese communist - Guardian

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 15 September 2009, 03:20 GMT]
In the second article in two days, UK's Guardian, warned Monday that by making Tamils feel newly repressed Sri Lanka is sowing seeds of future rebellian, noting that "in the months that have followed [the military victory] there has been little magnanimity, let alone reconciliation. Tens of thousands of Tamil civilians are still being kept in camps surrounded by barbed wire." The article further said that "Colombo's streets are littered with so many pictures of president Mahinda Rajapaksa and his brothers that the incipient personality cult would shame a Chinese communist. The triumphalism in Colombo means those who dare to question the government are deemed Tiger collaborators, terrorist sympathisers or Tamil secessionists."
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No change in dire camp conditions - CAFOD

[TamilNet, Thursday, 10 September 2009, 11:41 GMT]
As monsoon floods loom, CAFOD (Catholic Fund for Overseas Development) has called on Sri Lanka’s government “to end the forced confinement” of hundreds of thousands of Tamil civilians. “Nothing has changed over the last three months for the people that are living in the camps. They are overcrowded with poor sanitary conditions and inadequate health care,” CAFOD’s head of international programmes said this week. Another CAFOD official who visited one of the barbed-wire ringed militarised camps told the BBC this week that “a potential crisis could brew there if the rains come through and those camps are still as congested as they are [now].”
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JVP to decide on its stand in supporting extending emergency

[TamilNet, Sunday, 06 September 2009, 16:48 GMT]
The politburo of the Sinhala Marxist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) is to decide this week whether to support the Extension of Emergency in the country any more in view of the arrest and detention of three journalists working in its official paper “Lanka” under the Emergency Regulations (ER) and Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA), JVP parliamentary group leader Mr. Anura Kumara Dissanayake told media in Colombo. Police arrested three journalists of JVP in Deniyaya on 2nd September while they were taking pictures and videoing Bewarali estate bungalow.
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Police arrest suspect in killing of Sinhalese doctor in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Saturday, 05 September 2009, 16:13 GMT]
Batticaloa police took into custody Friday a suspect involved in the killings of a Sinhalese Medical Officer and a Tamil civilian that took place in Naavatkudaa in Batticaloa district on 16 November 2008. Batticaloa court ordered the suspect to be detained in Ea’raavoor police station for further interrogation.
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Arrest Sri Lankan state racism to meet norms of International governance - paper

[TamilNet, Friday, 04 September 2009, 00:13 GMT]
A future peace in Sri Lanka rests on the international community being willing and able to contain and constrain the now rampant, but long-embedded, Sinhala chauvinism gripping the island, the Tamil Guardian said this week. “Racism, especially when entrenched thus [in the state], cannot be effaced by suasion and engagement, but by making it utterly impossible for it to hold sway,” the editorial said. “In short, as in the case of [past] racist regimes in other parts of the world, the international community must be prepared to isolate and exclude the Sri Lankan state until it is prepared to adhere, no matter how reluctantly, to international norms of governance.”
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