Police refuse permission for Jaffna protest

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 08 May 2001, 17:36 GMT]
The Sri Lanka Police in Jaffna Tuesday refused permission for a demonstration by people who were displaced from the Thenmaradchi division of the peninsula last May due to fighting between the Liberation Tigers and the Sri Lanka army. Families displaced from Chavakachcheri sought permission this week to hold a demonstration on May 11 Friday to demand that they be resettled soon or be allowed to go to their homes and retrieve their belongings.

Currently the army does not allow persons displaced from Chavakachcheri to resettle; nor does it permit them to visit the homes they fled last year to retrieve whatever is left of their belongings.

The organisers said that they were planning to hold a peaceful march and demonstration and hand over a memorandum urging the government to do the needful to resettle them as soon as possible in Chavakachcheri.