Singapore Tamils protest newspaper misreporting

[TamilNet, Thursday, 12 February 2009, 13:57 GMT]
Singapore Tamils have protested misreporting of a news in the headlines of the country's Tamil daily Tamil Murasu last Thursday, which read that the LTTE had claimed they would even attack Tamil Nadu, media circles in Singapore said.

The newspaper published the story in the headlines as reported from Colombo, citing TamilNet as the source and describing it as an LTTE website.

The source cited by the newspaper was a line that appeared in a feature article titled "India's devastating 'play with fire' in the island of Sri Lanka," on 30 January, 2009.

The concerned line reads as follows:

"This time the war is not going to be confined to the island of Sri Lanka, but will be fought involving Tamil Nadu too."

The context of the above line in the article would show that it was written in an anticipatory sense to mean that failure of India in tackling the current crisis would cause re-emergence of the struggle with a wider perspective and this time Tamil Nadu would be joining the Eezham Tamils in their struggle.

It was wrongly read and interpreted completely the other way round that the LTTE was going to attack Tamil Nadu.

The preceding paragraph of the line, explaining the context, goes as follows:

“The net result of the Indian game, without enjoying any popular support from any quarter concerned can only be autocratic and will prove to be devastative to the entire island. Repercussions arising from resentment, coupled with re-emergence of a dormant LTTE will only see a raging political inferno and bloodbath.

“This time the war is not going to be confined to the island of Sri Lanka, but will be fought involving Tamil Nadu too.”

Nowhere in the article or in any other write-up appeared in TamilNet, it has been said or implied that the Tigers would attack Tamil Nadu.

It seems that the Tamil Mursau news writer didn't read the original TamilNet article in full, but was depending on a partial citation of it that appeared in a blog.

TamilNet is an independent news agency contrary to its depiction by Tamil Murasu.

Chronology: