12 Muslim houses torched in Akkaraippattu

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 04 September 2007, 14:28 GMT]
A gang of ten Sinhala thugs armed with sharp instruments entered through the borders of Oluvil, and Pa'l'lakkaadu and set fire to 12 Muslim homes in Ashraff town in Akkaraippattu police division in Amparai district Monday evening around 6:00 p.m., local residents said.
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13 Tamil youths arrested in Gampola

[TamilNet, Sunday, 02 September 2007, 05:16 GMT]
121 persons including 13 Tamil youths were taken into custody in a combined cordon and search operation conducted by the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) and police in eleven police divisions in Gampola district Sunday from morning till dusk.
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Veerapuram residents threatened by Sinhalese Mob

[TamilNet, Thursday, 30 August 2007, 00:47 GMT]
Tamil civilians in the neighbouring village of Veerapuram have received death threats from a group of Sinhalese after the shooting death of four home guards and a bus driver in U'lukku'lam in Vavuniyaa on 20 August by unidentified gunmen, sources said. The group has vowed to kill three times the number killed in U'lukku'lam in Vavuniyaa.
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Western media ignores Sri Lanka State Terror- Aussie doctor

[TamilNet, Saturday, 25 August 2007, 13:35 GMT]
Queensland Pediatrician and Director of Townsville Hospital's Neonatal Unit, Dr John Whitehall, talking with Richard Fidler of ABC radio in the program "Conversation hour" early this week, said that in Tamil eelam there "is tremendous commitment from a population of only three million people [for separation]. You can't get 17000 people to take up arms and fight to death unless their hearts are in their cause," and added that "What I have come to be aware [is] you can't understand the situation in Colombo if you only focus on the terror which is coming from one side, and you don't mention the state terror, the terror inflicted by Colombo state."
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US in refurbishment of markets in Trincomalee region

[TamilNet, Saturday, 18 August 2007, 10:44 GMT]
Breaking ground for refurbishment of Anpuvazhipuram market in Trincomalee, Deputy Chief of Mission at U.S. Embassy in Sri Lanka, James R. Moore, said "The U.S. Government is proud to be able to contribute to the refurbishment of this market, which is important to the economic and social life of Trincomalee...The coming months and years will be a decisive and exciting period for Trincomalee and the East. We hope there will be new opportunities for people of all communities," the US Embassy said in a press release issued Wednesday.
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SLA deserters arrested in Colombo for terrorising Tamils

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 14 August 2007, 10:54 GMT]
The Colombo police Monday arrested three Sinhalese persons who are said to be deserters of the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) on a complaint that they had been collecting names of Tamils who returned from abroad and staying with their relatives in Jampettah Street at Kotahena in Colombo city.
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Impunity reigns, rights record seriously deteriorates- HRW

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 07 August 2007, 02:31 GMT]
Qualifying the report as focusing primarily on abuses by the Sri Lankan government, the Human Rights Watch (HRW), a New York-based rights organization, in a hard-hitting report released Monday said "the government's respect for international law has sharply declined, with it often appearing indifferent to the impact on civilians in the north and east...the main areas of concern [are], from violations of the laws of war and extrajudicial killings to unlawful restrictions on the media and nongovernmental organizations and the widespread impunity enjoyed by state security forces...Sri Lanka's defense establishment is particularly responsible for abuses."
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Right to Protect

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 01 August 2007, 01:01 GMT]
Gareth Evans, President, International Crisis Group, in the eighth Neelan Tiruchelvam Memorial Lecture at International Centre for Ethnic Studies (ICES) , Colombo, 29 July said "The State has a primary responsibility to protect the individuals within it. Where the state fails in that responsibility, through either incapacity or ill-will, a secondary responsibility to protect falls on the wider international community. That, in a nutshell, is the core of the responsibility to protect (R2P) idea" and that "Sri Lanka is anything but an R2P."
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Ezhuvaitheevu

[TamilNet, Friday, 27 July 2007, 10:57 GMT]

1. The island of landmark
2. The emerging island at the mouth of the channel
3. The island of the group of seven
4. The first island sighted
5. The island of Eezham
6. The island of goats

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Black July emblematic of Sinhala rule - paper

[TamilNet, Monday, 23 July 2007, 05:38 GMT]
In nearly a quarter century of conflict since the state-sponsored anti-Tamil riots of July 1983, despite the tens of thousands of lives that have been lost in the conflict, “there has not been an iota of change in the Sinhala leadership’s thinking – nor, for that matter, in the sentiments of the international community [on the ethnic question],” the Tamil Guardian newspaper argued in its editorial this week. Comparing the regimes of Presidents Junius Jayawardene, Chandrika Kumaratunga and Mahinda Rajapakse, the paper contends: “Black July is not just a historical event. Rather, it is an emblematic act of Sinhala rule."
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Sri Lanka and International Community

[TamilNet, Sunday, 24 June 2007, 18:05 GMT]
Nation, nation-state and nationalism are manifestations of a psychological phenomenon, experienced collectively by a group of people. It is a feeling of attachment and identity that comes naturally. Nationalism cannot be dictated to unwilling sections of the peoples of a country, whoever may come forward guaranteeing the territorial integrity of that country. Such guarantees may be meaningful when one nation invades others, but not when there is a genuine struggle for freedom within a country.
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UK lawmakers urge LTTE de-proscription

[TamilNet, Thursday, 03 May 2007, 23:47 GMT]
Amid signs of greater British involvement in efforts to end Sri Lanka’s conflict, the UK government was this week urged by ruling and opposition lawmakers to lift the ban on the Liberation Tigers in the interests of a negotiated solution. At a landmark debate on Sri Lanka’s conflict in the British Parliament on Wednesday, leaders of a newly formed all party group representing the interests of the island’s Tamils urged the Blair government to lift the ban on the LTTE and also called for LTTE political leaders to be allowed to address the British parliament to better understand their views.
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Tamil fisherman abducted in Mannar

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 24 April 2007, 17:09 GMT]
Unidentified armed men abducted a fisherman at gun point from his house Tuesday around 3:00 p.m at Pesalai in Mannar district, according to complaints lodged by his relatives with Talaimannar police. The armed men who spoke fluent Tamil and Sinhalese had said they were police officials, according to the complaint.


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LTTE: Sri Lanka’s accusations of credit card fraud is ‘attempt to distract from rights abuses’

[TamilNet, Sunday, 22 April 2007, 09:08 GMT]
Liberation Tigers Political Head, S. P. Thamilchelvan, responding to allegations by the Sri Lankan Embassy in London that the Liberation Tigers were involved in organised crime in Britain involving the cloning of credit cards, dismissed the accusations and slammed them as an attempt by the Colombo government to distract international attention from widespread human rights abuses by its armed forces. Mr. Thamilchelvan said Sri Lanka's accusations which sought to implicate the hardworking and law-abiding Tamil Diaspora, stemmed from the "same chauvinism that caused the island’s protracted ethnic war."
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GoSL must pay compensation to Batticaloa IDPs- MP

[TamilNet, Friday, 20 April 2007, 04:24 GMT]
One third of the Batticaloa Tamil population has been made refugees and, as a result, the educational, social and economical resources and growth of the Tamil people have suffered grave setback, P. Ariyaneththiran, Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Member of Parliament for Batticaloa district said in a press communiqué Thursday. He urged the Sri Lanka Government authorities to take steps to pay compensation to those who suffered economic loss due to displacement.
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HRW urges Pope to discuss human rights with Rajapaksa

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 18 April 2007, 08:48 GMT]
The Asia Director of Human Rights Watch, Brad Adams, Tuesday, urged Pope Benedict XVI, to raise the deteriorating human rights crisis in Sri Lanka with Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapaksa, who is visiting Vatican this week. Sri Lankan military and police forces, as well as proxy armed groups, are engaged in serious violations of the laws of war and human rights, reiterated Human Rights Watch in the letter.
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Tamil youth files FR petition in SC

[TamilNet, Friday, 13 April 2007, 00:32 GMT]
A Tamil youth, who earlier served in Iraq with a security firm, filed a Fundamental Rights application in the Sri Lanka's Supreme Court challenging the arrest and detention served on him under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA). He has begged the SC to order for his release and to instruct the State to pay a compensation of 100 million rupees for violating his fundamental rights. He has cited the Director of the Terrorism Investigation Department (TID), Officer-in-Charge of the Gampaha Police Station, Deputy Inspector general of Police (DIG), Gampaha region, DIG for the Western province, Inspector General of Police (IGP), Defence Ministry Secretary and Attorney General (AG).
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LTTE urges sports boycott of Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 10 April 2007, 09:11 GMT]
The Tamil Tigers Tuesday backed an Amnesty International awareness campaign that has embarrassed Sri Lanka's government during the cricket World Cup and urged a full sporting boycott of the country, AFP reported. Amnesty’s campaign to build support for international human rights monitoring in Sri Lanka, using the topical theme of cricket, has drawn the fury of the Colombo government as well as the main opposition Sinhala parties.
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16 Tamil civilians arrested in Wellawatte, Kataragama

[TamilNet, Friday, 06 April 2007, 10:43 GMT]
Three Tamil civilians including two women were arrested Friday morning in a cordon and search operation conducted in Wellawatte in Colombo by security forces. They are now being detained in the Wellawatte police station and subjected to interrogation, sources said. Meanwhile, thirteen plantation Tamils including two women were arrested in Kataragama in the south in a combined cordon and search operation conducted by the Sri Lanka and Police on Wednesday.
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Sinhalese appointed East's Chief Secretary

[TamilNet, Friday, 06 April 2007, 02:00 GMT]
Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapakse has appointed Mr.Herat Abeyeweera as the Chief Secretary of the de-merged Eastern Provincial Council (EPC) on the recommendation of Provincial Governor Rear Admiral (retired) Mohan Wijayawickrema. The new appointment has come into effect from April 1 Sunday to fill the vacancy created by the retirement of Mr.R.Thiakalingam who held the post for two months since the de-merger of the North East Provincial Council (NEPC).
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