Picketing in Jaffna demanding release of PTA suspects

[TamilNet, Monday, 10 March 2003, 17:21 GMT]
Hundreds of people and civil activists participated in a one-hour picketing conducted in front of the Jaffna district secretariat Monday morning from 10.30 demanding the immediate release of all Tamil political prisoners from prisons at Kalutara and elsewhere in the south of the country. Jaffna district Tamil National Alliance parliamentarians Messrs Mavai Senathirajah, G.G.Gajendrakumar, A.Vinayagamoorthy, M.K.Sivajilingam, N.Raviraj participated in the campaign, sources said.

The leader of the Eelam Peoples Revolutionary Liberation Front Mr.Suresh Premachchandran, a former parliamentarian Mr.K.Sivamaharasa and Mr. Solomon Cyril of Jaffna District Peoples' Forum also participated in the picketing campaign, sources said.

About eighty Tamil political prisoners at Kalutara prison are now on hunger strike demanding their immediate release,source said.

Jaffna district TNA parliamentarian Mr.M.K.Sivajilingam addressing the gathering said that the government should take immediate steps to release all Tamil political prisoners now being detained at prisons in the south under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA). " If the Government of Sri Lanka fails to act urgently on this matter, we will organize a mass agitation to bring all activities in the Jaffna district to a complete halt until these prisoners are released," Mr.Sivajilingam warned.