Tamil civilian released after 14 months' detention

[TamilNet, Monday, 01 September 2008, 15:40 GMT]
Jaffna born Tharmalingam Pushparajah, a resident of Negombo in the western province for several years was released by the Colombo Magistrate Court Friday after 14 months' detention in Welikada prison under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) without any evidence to implicate him with any 'terrorist activity', legal sources in Colombo said.
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Jury discharged in Sivaram murder case, trial put off

[TamilNet, Thursday, 28 August 2008, 14:19 GMT]
Colombo High Court Judge A.T.Ratnaike Wednesday discharged the Sinhalese speaking Jury in the murder case of popular military analyst and TamilNet editorial board member Dharmeratnam Sivaram (Taraki) following the submission by the prosecution that whereabouts of one of the key prosecution witnesses was not known, legal sources said.
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Sinhala students of EUSL to be admitted to southern universities

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 26 August 2008, 08:28 GMT]
Sri Lankan Minister of Higher Education Viswa Warnapala has taken steps to temporarily admit Sinhala students of Eastern University of Sri Lanka (EUSL) to Universities in South. Due to the tension prevailing in the EUSL in the aftermath of the killing of Sinhala student, the University Grant Commission (UGC) had consulted Bail Rajapaksa, the brother and advisor of Sri Lankan President and the officials of the Sri Lankan Ministry of Defence.
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EUSL suspends educational activities

[TamilNet, Friday, 22 August 2008, 09:59 GMT]
Eastern University Vice-chancellor Dr. V. Pathmanathan on Friday suspended all educational activities temporarily and made arrangements to send the Sinhalese students in the university safely to Polonnaruwa district first and from there to their homes, on instructions from the University Grant Commission (UGC), the VC said. The UGC has taken this decision after consulting the local heads of the government armed forces after a Sinhalese student was shot and killed Thursday by unidentified armed men.
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UNP chief ministerial candidate injured in attack

[TamilNet, Thursday, 14 August 2008, 05:51 GMT]
Film actor cum politician Ranjan Ramanayake, United National Party (UNP) chief ministerial candidate in Sabragamuwa Provincial Council election, was injured Wednesday night when persons alleged to be supporters of the ruling United People's Freedom Alliance (UPFA) attacked the convoy of UNP vehicles in Gal-Ela area in Ratnapura district, in Sabaragamuwa province. Two police officers of the police security team accompanying the convoy were also injured, sources in Colombo said.
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Ministry stops English training for Tamil teachers in South

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 13 August 2008, 11:20 GMT]
Sri Lanka's Education Ministry has decided not to enroll Tamil teachers from the NorthEast to English Teacher Training College in Maharagama and Kalutara for English Language training when the courses recommence on September 1. Only Sinhalese teachers are to be admitted in these education institutions in future, according to education officials.
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NPM opposes granting police, land powers to PCs

[TamilNet, Saturday, 09 August 2008, 01:41 GMT]
The National Patriotic Movement (NPM), an extreme Sinhala nationalist organization, said Friday that it would launch a struggle if the government accedes to the demand to devolve land and police powers to provincial councils. "Granting of such powers to provincial councils is tantamount to granting Tamil Eelam to Velupillai Pirapaharan,"said Dr.Gunadasa Amarasekara, President of NPM at a press briefing held in Colombo.
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Sinhalese woman detained under PTA, in Colombo

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 06 August 2008, 11:37 GMT]
Sri Lanka Defense Ministry has served a detention order with effect from Tuesday till August 14 under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) on a Sinhalese woman, Kamali Krishanthi Perera, of Pamankade in Colombo, for allegedly providing accommodation to a suspected suicide bomber of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in Colombo, media sources said.
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South African Tamils commemorate Black July

[TamilNet, Saturday, 26 July 2008, 12:29 GMT]
More than 600 South African Tamils assembled at the Kharwastan Temple Hall in Chatsworth South Africa to observe the 25th anniversary of Black July, Friday. The African National Congress (ANC) Member of Parliament, Sisa Njikelana from Gauteng Province, delivered the key note speech, comparing developing situation in Sri Lanka to those in Rwanda and Brundi. The function, organised by the Tamil Co-ordinating Committee of South Africa and presided by Mr Vinoth Rajagopaul, was broadcast live on national radio station, Lotus FM (SABC).
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Sinhalese with LTTE identity card arrested in Anuradhapura

[TamilNet, Thursday, 24 July 2008, 03:10 GMT]
A Sinhala man, who attempted to enter the premises of Anuradhapura High Court on July 20 with an identity card allegedly issued by the LTTE, was taken into custody and is being detained for interrogation by the Terrorist Intelligence Division (TID) of the Sri Lanka Police. Police personnel manning the sentry point at the entrance to the High Court arrested the suspect, police sources said.
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20 Tamil youths arrested in Sri Lanka's Central towns

[TamilNet, Saturday, 19 July 2008, 09:11 GMT]
Twenty seven civilians including twenty Tamils were arrested in two separate cordon and search operation conducted from Wednesday evening till Thursday evening in Dambulla and Teldeniya areas, sources said. The arrested are still being detained in respective police stations, and are to be produced in courts after the investigation is completed, police sources said.
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Sri Lanka's 'Tamil implementation'

[TamilNet, Saturday, 19 July 2008, 04:04 GMT]
The Sri Lankan government and its agencies outside are bent on a propaganda programme of highlighting equal implementation of Tamil as an official language in Sri Lanka, as provided by the 13th amendment of the constitution, to argue the case against secession and to justify themselves to international opinion. But in actual practice there is a planned effort by the state to sinhalicise the very usage of Eezham Tamil itself.
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SL Supreme Court allows videofilming during search operations

[TamilNet, Thursday, 17 July 2008, 10:22 GMT]
The Sri Lankan Supreme Court Chief Justice Sarath Silvan has allowed the Sri Lankan 'security' establishment to video residents of 'all communities' during the cordon and search operations. The Sri Lankan Chief Justice issued the directive Tuesday following the explanation by the State Counsel appearing for the Attorney General in a fundamental rights violation case filed by the Ceylon Workers Congress (CWC) against the indiscriminate arrests of Tamils in Colombo that it is tantamount to violating fundamental rights of Tamils. Members of law enforcement authority could continue video filming of persons in search operation irrespective of racial, religious and other differences.
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Alleged bureaucratic humiliation caused Police officer's suicide

[TamilNet, Friday, 11 July 2008, 09:54 GMT]
Just seven days to go for retirement, the Officier-in-Charge of the Kalmunai police, W.C.Wijetilake, committed suicide by shooting himself Friday morning after he has been ordered to serve in a post which he considered a demotion, according to informed sources inside the Police.
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'Conversations in a Failing State'

[TamilNet, Friday, 11 July 2008, 04:00 GMT]
Towards the end of 19th century, the renowned American writer Mark Twain visited Colombo. While he was admiring the plurality of colour in the native dresses, somewhere in Pettah, he saw native children coming out of an English school, in line, in white uniform and in the same hairdo. ‘What an ugly scene’, he wrote, being sad at the way colonial institutions depriving natives of their pluralism. More than a century later, Patrick Lawrence, another American, comes to Sri Lanka to record the net results, a failed nationalism and a failed state, as consequences of the loss of pluralism.
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3 Sinhalese businessmen shot dead in Kalmunai

[TamilNet, Thursday, 10 July 2008, 06:04 GMT]
Unidentified gunmen opened fire on Sinhalese businessmen who were traveling in a lorry in Kalmunai, 36 km southeast of Batticaloa, killing them on the spot on Quarry Road, Thursday around 9:00 a.m., Police said. The victims were from Wattegama in Kandy.
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Sri Lanka, a case of political inequality

[TamilNet, Friday, 04 July 2008, 16:38 GMT]
Striking a sharp contrast to Colombo's portrayal of Eezham struggle as a terrorist issue, Frances Stewart, the director of the Oxford based Centre for Research on Inequality, Human Security and Ethnicity (CRISE), looks at the crisis as a case of inequalities in political power between the Tamils and Sinhalese. In an interview that appeared in Human Rights Tribune, on Thursday, she said: "Horizontal inequalities have political, economic, social and cultural dimensions… Inequalities in political power, which are very important, where one group may have total dominance of the political system, and another group does not have any access, which is the situation more or less in Sri Lanka."
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3 policemen, 2 civilians injured in Claymore attack in Ea’raavoor

[TamilNet, Thursday, 03 July 2008, 16:37 GMT]
A Claymore attack on the train from Batticaloa to Colombo Thursday around 8:15 p.m near Ea’raavoor Railway station injured three policemen and two civilians including a student. The train left Batticaloa Railway station at 7:30 p.m.
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Knowledge books mistreat Tamil history

[TamilNet, Thursday, 03 July 2008, 07:34 GMT]
The presentation of the History of Eezham Tamils, in some of the international reference material such as Britannica Concise Encyclopedia and The World Factbook by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), has become a matter of serious concern for Tamils all over the world. When the discipline of history itself is being deconstructed in the portals of knowledge of the postmodern era on one hand, these international sources of information are still harping on colonial brand of Orientalism, by basing history on myths.
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Sri Lanka Army chief says victory date now mid-2009

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 02 July 2008, 09:01 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army chief Lt. Gen. Sarath Fonseka this week again revised his timetable for defeating the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam; to mid-2009, from an earlier estimate of June 2008. Saying that the LTTE had lost its conventional fighting capacity, he told international correspondents Monday that, within a year, most of the remaining Tigers would be dead. Saying that the objective of the LTTE was to capture the entire island and wipe out the majority Sinhalese community, he vowed: "we will not allow that at any cost, we will fight them."
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