Parliament approves emergency extension

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 07 October 2008, 19:25 GMT]
The Sri Lanka's parliament Tuesday by a majority of 84 votes adopted the motion moved by the government to extend the State of Emergency by one month, parliamentary sources said. 98 parliamentarians of the ruling United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) including the newly appointed Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan, alias Karuna voted for the motion. Fourteen parliamentarians of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) voted against the motion.

Parliamentarians of the main opposition United National Party (UNP) and Sri Lanka Muslim Congress were not present in the parliament.

The Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) Tuesday boycotted the parliament sittings in protest to the appointment of Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan to the seat that fell vacant due to the resignation of its parliamentarian Vasantha Samarasinghe.