Providing moral support to Eelam, not a crime- Thirumavalavan

[TamilNet, Saturday, 26 January 2008, 18:53 GMT]
"Any move to suppress those expressing moral support to Tamil Eelam and LTTE is violation of all tenets of democracy and humanism, and will border on fascism," Viduthalai Chiruththaikal Katchi (VCK, Liberation Panthers Party) President Thol. Thirumavalavan said on Friday addressing a conference organized by his party in Chennai labeled "Redeem the Freedom of Expression."

Thirumavalavan said although the LTTE was a banned organization in many countries, expression of moral support to the movement is not banned.

"Condemning the continuing genocide of Tamils in Sri Lanka by the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) and condoling the death of innocent people cannot be portrayed as anti-national," Thirumavalavan said, and added that the local parties were opposing this democratic right inorder to gain political mileage.

He pointed out that even Chief Minister Karunanidhi's right to freedom of expression was violated when he was chastised for writing an elegy for LTTE political head SP Thamilchelvan recently.

"When peoples rights are violated, we, the oppressed people cannot remain silent." The VCK, being a party comprising of people from a section of the society that had lost freedom of expression for many years, had the duty to organize such a conference, he said.

The VCK leader reiterated that the conference was being organized to emphasize the point that his party had the right to condemn the genocide of Tamils in Sri Lanka and condole the deaths of the Eelam Tamils. If efforts are taken to ban the VCK for having organized this conference to retrieve the freedom of expression, it will pave the way for the VCK to grow into a very massive, powerful force, he said.

Dr. Dagmar Hellmann-Rajanayagam, a researcher from Germany, Ranath Kumarasinghe, PolitBuro Member, Nava Sama Samaj Party, Sri Lanka, M.K. Sivajilingam, Member of Parliament, Tamil National Alliance (TNA), Sri Lanka, were the other speakers at the conference.

Political observers in Colombo said the meeting is a land mark event where, perhaps, for the first time a Sinhalese leader had addressed people in Tamil Nadu.



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