Tamil sovereignty, basis of peace talks - LTTE

[TamilNet, Monday, 24 September 2007, 17:37 GMT]
Liberation Tigers of Tamileelam (LTTE), in a statement issued Monday, urged the UN General Assembly which has gathered for its 62nd session in New York, USA, to recognize the concept of the sovereignty of the Tamil people and support the peace process in accordance with this principle. The LTTE statement characterized the confidence of some members of the International Community on Sri Lanka's latest All Party Representative Committee (APRC) which has not brought any constructive outcome to date, as a misplaced confidence.
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Death threats escalate in Jaffna, doctors flee extortion

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 18 September 2007, 10:25 GMT]
Death threats from Sri Lanka Army (SLA) backed armed Tamil paramilitary groups, have forced many doctors and medical specialists in Jaffna to complain to Human Rights Commission (HRC) and to leave the peninsula fearing death and abduction of their children and family members while more of them are contemplating flight from the peninsula, civil society sources in Jaffna said. Meanwhile, an editor of the Jaffna edition of a Colombo based daily has been threatened to death. Paramilitary personnel are targeting the Tamil intellectuals in Jaffna with extortion, abduction and death threats.
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‘The gun is silencing the pen’ – Jaffna journalists

[TamilNet, Thursday, 10 May 2007, 11:49 GMT]
Following the recent murder of another journalist in Jaffna by suspected Army-backed paramilitaries, the Journalists Union there has appealed to the international community to defend media freedom in Sri Lanka. Despite international media watchdogs’ disquiet over threats to Sri Lankan journalists, paramilitaries are openly threatening media workers and civil society activists in the northern peninsula, reporters say. The journalists appeal was supported this week by an appeal to the government signed by the Tamil Nationalist Alliance (TNA), Sri Lanka’s largest Tamil party.
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Ambassador Boucher visits Jaffna

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 09 May 2007, 10:15 GMT]
Ambassador Richard Boucher, Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Affairs, accompanied by US Ambassador in Colombo Robert O' Blake, arrived in Palaali in Jaffna district around 10:30 a.m. Wednesday by a special flight. Mr. Richard Boucher held discussion with the Sri Lanka army high officials in Palaali military headquarters and at 11:15 a.m. he met with the Jaffna Government Agent K.Ganesh at the latter's office located in the Jaffna district secretariat and discussed about the ground situation in the peninsula. Government officials also attended the discussion.
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Police powers to military threatens democracy - NPC

[TamilNet, Friday, 04 May 2007, 06:16 GMT]
Colombo based National Peace Council, a peace group, Friday said it was "extremely concerned," about SL President Mahinda Rajapaksa's decision, a month ago, about delegating police powers to the military. "There is an urgent need for the government to demonstrate clear political will in regard to law and order processes if it is to retain the confidence of the civilian population that it is not taking the country on a journey to anarchy and to the breakdown of democratic governance," the NPC said. The group said it was apprehensive that this government decision will send wrong signals and lead to an aggravation of the hardships faced by the civilian population.
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RSF condemns murder of Jaffna journalist

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 01 May 2007, 01:12 GMT]
Reporters Without Borders (RSF - Reporters Sans Frontiers) the French based Journalist organization condemned the killing of young journalist, Selvarajah Rajivarman, who was killed in Jaffna Sunday by a lone gunman riding a motorbike.
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Thousands attend journalist Rajivarman's funeral

[TamilNet, Monday, 30 April 2007, 18:01 GMT]
Majority of the residents of the home town of the young journalist Rajivarman, killed by unknown gunmen Sunday in Jaffna, paid their last respects to his remains kept at his house in Aavarangkaal, Puththoor in Valikaamam Monday. Media persons, religious dignitaries, and civil society leaders spoke at the event.


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SLTMA urges action on Journalist's killing

[TamilNet, Sunday, 29 April 2007, 20:37 GMT]
The Sri Lanka Tamil Media Alliance (SLTMA ) in a communique issued Sunday appealed to the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) to take immediate action to find those involved in the killing of Uthayan journalist Selvarajah Rajivarman in Jaffna Sunday morning, sources in Jaffna said.


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Young journalist shot dead in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Sunday, 29 April 2007, 08:42 GMT]
Selvarajah Rajivarman, 25, a young journalist working at Jaffna's Uthayan newspaper was shot and killed Sunday by gunmen riding in a motorbike at Naavalar Road, Rasaavin Thoaddam junction around 10:00 a.m. The journalist was on duty collecting news in Jaffna town, according to the Uthayan officials. Mr. Rajivarman was a talented and energic newsreporter who was also attending an external degree course at Jaffna Univeristy according to North Sri Lanka Journalists Association (NSLJA).
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SLA, police, arrest 6 Tamils in Vavuniya

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 10 April 2007, 14:51 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) and police took away six Tamils in a search conducted Tuesday from morning till evening in 4th, 5th and 6th Unit areas in Pavatkulam in Vavuniya district, in which all males in the areas were transported to Varikuttiyoor junction on Poovarasankulam-Chettikulam road, where they were produced before a person whose face and head were hooded, sources in Pavatkulam said. The hooded person identified five local males and one internally displaced person by nodding his head and the SLA and police brought the six civilians to Vavuniya, relatives of those arrested said.


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Five schools in Eravur relocated

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 06 February 2007, 02:10 GMT]
Five schools in Chenkaldy educational zone in Eravur region in Batticaloa District have been temporarily relocated to alternate locations due to internal displacement of civilians, zonal education officer A.Sugumaran announced Monday.
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Acute shortage of newsprint in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 31 January 2007, 09:51 GMT]
International Independent Journalist Organization and Sri Lanka Organization for Freedom of Expression in Jaffna have sent letters to the Ambassadors of donor countries and International media agencies, informing the severe shortage of news print and ink in the Jaffna peninsula. The shortage has forced the publishers of Tamil dailies to reduce the number of pages and the number of copies published, the publishers said.
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Media watchdog condemns paramilitary ban on papers

[TamilNet, Friday, 12 January 2007, 11:52 GMT]
Free Media Movement, a Colombo based media watchdog, Friday said it noted with deep concern the alleged ban imposed by the Karuna paramilitary group on the sale of Colombo Tamil dailies Virakesari, Thinakkural and Sudar Oli in the East. The paramilitary group, operated by the Sri Lanka Army, had banned the sale of the Tamil papers, except the EPDP paramilitary owned Thinamurasu and the Sri Lanka Government owned Thinakaran in Sri Lanka Army controlled areas of Batticaloa district. The group has issued death threats to news agents in Trincomalee in an attempt to block the distribution of independent Tamil papers in the district.
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SLA intimidates Jaffna media- TNA MP

[TamilNet, Thursday, 11 January 2007, 00:07 GMT]
“Sri Lankan Army (SLA) soldiers Tuesday night entered three Jaffna based Tamil newspaper offices, threatened the staff, and took away at gun point the press communiqué from Jaffna University Students Union (JUSU) waiting to be published," said Kirushnan Sivanesan, the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Parliamentarian for Jaffna district Wednesday.
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Jaffna dailies face closure due to newsprint shortage

[TamilNet, Saturday, 30 December 2006, 13:23 GMT]
Acute shortage of newsprint and printing ink in Jaffna may force closure of Tamil dailies, Uthayan, Yarl Thinakural and Valampuri, administrators at the papers' main offices said. After the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) closed A9 in 11 August, no printing material and ink were allowed into Jaffna district, officials added.
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Red Cross hands over bodies of six LTTE cadres

[TamilNet, Sunday, 17 December 2006, 11:15 GMT]
Batticaloa district ICRC handed over to M. Mathy, Karadiyanaru LTTE head of political wing, Friday around 11:00 a.m, bodies of six Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) cadres killed in an ambush by Sri Lanka Army (SLA) and its paramilitary troopers Wednesday at Miyankulam. The LTTE cadres, injured in an earlier battle, were being taken for treatment across the Colombo-Batticaloa road at Miyankulam, when they were ambushed, Batticaloa sources said. Miyankulam lies on the border between LTTE held area in Vaharai and SLA held areas.


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Two civilians killed, one policeman shot, injured in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 12 December 2006, 13:04 GMT]
A 50 year old civilian, caught in the cross fire in a clash between unidentified armed men and Sri Lanka Army (SLA) road patrol unit at Kokuvil in Jaffna Monday night, was killed on the spot. Jaffna police recovered the body around 8:45 p.m and handed it over to Jaffna Teaching hospital. In a separate incident at Udupiddy in Vadamaradchi, two unidentified armed men shot dead an employee of the Jaffna Teaching hospital at his house Tuesday around 7:00 a.m, sources in Jaffna said.
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Jaffna Tamil daily staffer disappears

[TamilNet, Sunday, 10 December 2006, 15:21 GMT]
An employee at the computer section of the Jaffna Tamil daily, Namathu Eelanadu, has not been seen from 4:30 p.m Tuesday, officials from the Jaffna Human Rights Commisssion (HRC) said Sunday.
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FMM deplores SLA's censoring of Jaffna press

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 08 November 2006, 11:52 GMT]
The Free Media Movement (FMM) in a press release issued in Colombo Tuesday said that FMM is "deeply concerned that the media situation in the Jaffna Peninsula is extremely dire, with many media establishments and journalists now preferring an overt legal censorship of the media as opposed to frequent thinly veiled threats and intimidation by armed forces, including the Army."


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Media delegation briefed on the woes of Tamil journalists

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 10 October 2006, 11:25 GMT]
The delegates of International media, who arrived in Colombo on Monday on a fact finding mission, to assess the climate of press freedom in Sri Lanka, held a meeting with the representatives from Sri Lanka Working Journalists Association (SLWJA), Free Media Movement (FMM), Sri Lanka Tamil Media Alliance (SLTMA), Sri Lanka Muslim Media Forum (SLMMF) and Federation of Media Employees Trade Union (FMETU ) in collaboration with the Sri Lanka Press Institute (SLPI), sources in Colombo said.
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