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[TamilNet, Thursday, 31 July 2014, 14:14 GMT]
Following the SL military sabotage against Tamil journalists, who were on their way to attend a workshop held in Colombo on Friday, 25 July, and against the continued threat and harassment of the involved Eezham Tamil journalists, Tamil journalists in the five districts of Northern Province came together at a protest organised by the Jaffna Press Club in Jaffna city on Thursday. Media organisations based in South also took part in the protest in Jaffna expressing their solidarity with the Eezham Tamil journalists, who are being threatened and harassed by the occupying military of the genocidal Sri Lankan State.
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[TamilNet, Wednesday, 30 July 2014, 20:42 GMT]
The STF, trained by the British, which is a full-fledged military outfit under the SL Police and was directly engaged in acts of genocide in the East as well as in Vanni during the war, has started arbitrary arrests in Jaffna peninsula during the night time. Tamil youths are being detained for being spotted on the streets without identity papers in their own villages and towns. The civilian freedom of movement has been severely restricted and the people are again afraid to move around after 8:00 p.m. A so-called ‘Zonal Commander’ of the STF has been appointed for Jaffna peninsula, receiving direct instructions from the SL Military Establishment, informed sources said.
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[TamilNet, Tuesday, 29 July 2014, 18:01 GMT]
The General Secretary of MDMK, Mr Vaiko, on Tuesday condemned Indian participation at an annual military conference organized by genocidal Sri Lanka in August. The annual 'Defence Seminar' is conceived by the SL State as a gimmick venue to market its military corporatism project to the external forces under the banner of geo-strategic location of the island. Mr Vaiko has described Indian participation as ‘unpardonable‘, according to a news report by the Press Trust of India (PTI). The BJP government's move to participate in the seminar comes after it rejected entry to the members of the UN panel appointed by UN Human Rights Commission (UNHRC) head Navanethem Pillay to conduct an inquiry into alleged war crimes and human rights violations by the SL government and its military forces.
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[TamilNet, Monday, 28 July 2014, 22:33 GMT]
2,219 Tamil civilians are still residing in temporary huts and 747 families lack permanent housing in 43 Village (GS) Divisions of Poaratheevup-pattu Divisional Secretariat (DS) division in Batticaloa district, according to Divisional Secretary N. Vilvaratnam. The families have suffered not only from the genocidal onslaught, but also from the seasonal flooding and draught. 5,602 families have no access to toilets, according to the statistics from the divisional secretary. “This is the development brought to Batticaloa by the genocidal State and its Mahinda Chinthana,” a Tamil official who didn’t wish to be named commented providing the figures to TamilNet on Monday.
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[TamilNet, Sunday, 27 July 2014, 22:39 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lanka Navy has been refusing to release the Hindu cremation ground at Kadatkaraich-cheanai in Moothoor East of Trincomalee district since it occupied the area in 2006. Despite a section of the people were allowed to resettle in Moothoor East, the SL Navy is still holding the cremation grounds causing difficulties for the resettled people to cremate their dead and conduct the funeral rituals, says Eastern Provincial Council opposition member Kumarasamy Nageswaran.
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[TamilNet, Saturday, 26 July 2014, 13:31 GMT]
After harassing a group of 15 journalists who were heading to Colombo to take part in a meeting with the journalists in South, the SL military has instigated a hate campaign in South organising a protest against the meeting at Sri Lanka Press Institute in Colombo on Saturday. The harassment follows after the recent warning to aid groups to not providing funding to journalist workshops and SL military interference in the training sessions to Tamil journalists on investigative journalism.
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[TamilNet, Friday, 25 July 2014, 23:22 GMT]
A group of people representing the women groups in Jaffna staged a protest in front of the High Court in Jaffna on Friday demanding the legal system to punish the culprits behind the brutal rape of children in the occupied country of Eezham Tamils. The protestors had sealed their mouths with black bands to register the gagged condition under SL military occupation. In the meantime, SL navy and army intelligence operatives harassed two female reporters who went to Juvenile Magistrate’s Court at Kurunakar to report the news of another identification parade where two alleged culprits of the SL Navy from Kaarainakar base were supposed to be present.
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[TamilNet, Thursday, 24 July 2014, 23:18 GMT]
The brutal gang rape of 13-year-old girl and severe sexual abuse of 9-year-old girl have been medically established by the Judicial Medical Officer (JMO) attached to the Jaffna Teaching Hospital, informed legal sources in Jaffna told TamilNet Thursday. The girls have also stated that they were abused by Sinhala-speaking blue-uniformed men who took them to an abandoned building and subjected to the cruelty, the legal sources further said adding that the Sri Lankan judicial system was under heavy pressure from the SL military and the sources close to the SL Defence Secretary and SL presidential sibling Gotabhaya Rajapaksa not to indict the SL Navy personnel who were involved in the heinous crime.
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[TamilNet, Wednesday, 23 July 2014, 18:14 GMT]
Over a thousand Tamils from across the UK gathered outside the Celtic Park venue in Glasgow, Scotland, where the opening ceremony of the Commonwealth Games was taking place, to remember the victims of Sri Lanka's genocidal pogrom of Black July 1983 and to condemn participation of Sri Lanka in the event. However, Sri Lanka's President Rajapaksa, who was scheduled to be present at the event, evaded it owing to fear of protests reports say. The Tamils, who gathered with the national flag of Tamil Eelam in huge numbers, were treated cordially by the Scottish police, activists present at the demonstration said.
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[TamilNet, Wednesday, 23 July 2014, 14:19 GMT]
“The killing fields of Sri Lanka have received all too little attention in the British media, with up to 70,000 Tamil civilians massacred at the end of the 2009 civil war: but this does not serve as a deterrent for British arms sellers,” writes Owen Jones, a British columnist and author in an opinion piece in The Guardian on Wednesday. Further providing examples of states that have had a history of persecuting nations or suppressing basic civil rights, he laments that “our arms trade serves as a reminder that Britain's claim to be a promoter of democracy is a myth.”
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[TamilNet, Tuesday, 22 July 2014, 17:16 GMT]
“The SL military never bought my lands. They said I need to provide details to obtain land. Then I was forced to sign a paper in Sinhala at the police station. The SL military moved into my land and has now sent notice to seize the lands permanently from me,” said a Tamil mother who protested against the land surveyors who came to her land situated along the A9 Road, at Mirusuvil in Thenmaraadchi of the Jaffna district. While the protest was going on a group of SL military intelligence operatives entered the house of a Tamil councillor, who was supporting the protesting family, threatened his wife at gunpoint and caused damage to his property. Rasiah Theivendrampillai, the councillor from the divisional council in the area, said military personnel who entered his house, while he was at the protest, burnt his bankbooks and land deeds and threatened his family.
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[TamilNet, Monday, 21 July 2014, 16:51 GMT]
Survey department officials who were accompanied by the Sri Lankan police to survey lands of Eezham Tamils for permanent seizure by the occupying SL military at Achchuveali, situated in Valikaamam East of Jaffna district, were forced to withdraw after their vehicle was blockaded by the Tamil land owners with the support of Tamil political and civil activists in a successful protest for second time within a few days on Monday. The SL military, which has occupied the lands belonging to the Multi Purpose Cooperative Society (MPCS) and 9 families for two decades since the SL military captured Jaffna peninsula from Eezham Tamils in 1995, is now trying to establish a cantonment for the 5th Infantry Regiment on Rasa Road close to Achchuveali town.
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[TamilNet, Sunday, 20 July 2014, 23:19 GMT]
The UN Resident Coordinator in the island, who also assumes the role of Humanitarian Coordinator of the UN System, has recently neglected the request by Northern Provincial Council Chief Minister CV Wigneswaran to partner with the Northern Provincial Council ‘Government’ to conduct a comprehensive Need Assessment Report on the requirements of the war-affected population in North and instead entered into an agreement with the Colombo Government Ministry to conduct the same project. This was revealed to the public by Mr CV Wigneswaran himself, at a public address delivered by him on the occasion of the opening ceremony of the Chavakachcheari Town Hall on Saturday.
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[TamilNet, Saturday, 19 July 2014, 23:46 GMT]
The divisional secretary of Serunuwara in Trincomalee district has issued letters to more than 35 Tamil-speaking Muslim families to vacate their lands at Naavatkaadu (Selvanakar) village near Thoappoor. The Muslim families are residing in the lands with necessary papers for decades and they have engaged in agriculture in the lands since 1960. However, Colombo’s officials claim that 85 acres of lands were taken over by the SL State and declared as ‘Arachaeological Reserve’ already in 1962. Now the Muslims have been given instructed to vacate from their lands before August 30.
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[TamilNet, Friday, 18 July 2014, 21:46 GMT]
The family of a 11-year-old child, who was repeatedly raped by Sinhala soldiers of the occupying Sri Lanka Navy in the islet of Kaarai-nakar off Jaffna, has come under severe threat not to identify the soldiers, sources in Kaarai-nakar told TamilNet Friday. On Wednesday, the villagers of Oori, near the main naval base of the Sri Lanka Navy, captured a soldier after being identified by the child. The angered Tamil villagers demanded immediate arrest of the rapist Sinhala solider and handed him over to the SL Police at Oorkaavaththu’rai (Kayts). In the meantime, US-trained commander of the genocidal Sri Lankan military in North has instructed his officers to suppress the identification of the culprit by the child.
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[TamilNet, Thursday, 17 July 2014, 16:25 GMT]
The ‘Terrorist’ Investigation Division operated under the direct control of the Sri Lankan Defence Ministry has again harassed Tamil journalist S.R. Lambart from Mannaar, media sources in North said. The interrogators of genocidal SL military have been harassing the journalist to disclose his email password for the second time while claiming they had tapped a news story as originated from his email address.
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[TamilNet, Wednesday, 16 July 2014, 20:03 GMT]
Condemning the invitation sent to Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa for the Commonwealth Games to be held in Scotland later this month, several Tamil diaspora youth and student organizations sent a letter to Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond urging him to reconsider this decision. “We believe it is hypocritical of Scotland to advocate the right for independence through a referendum yet invite President Mahinda Rajapaksa to the Commonwealth Games, an alleged war criminal and perpetrator of genocide, who governs a country that denies human rights to the Tamil people and denies the right for the self-determination of the Tamil nation” the letter said. The consternation of the youth in general was that Mr. Salmond, a strong advocate of Scottish independence, had no qualms in hosting the perpetrator of the worst genocide of the 21st century.
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[TamilNet, Monday, 14 July 2014, 15:33 GMT]
The Tamil Civil Society Forum has handed over an appeal to Pope Francis on Sunday through Vatican's diplomatic representative to the island, urging the Pope to openly call upon Colmbo Government to stop militarising and colonizing Tamil lands, to restore the troop presence in the North and East to pre-war levels, end violence against women, honestly address the problems of the disappeared and the abducted including Rev. Fathers T. N. Jim Brown and G. A. Frances Joseph, accelerate the process by which surrendered detainees and all those who are in in communicado detention are released and allow people to remember the dead. The TCSF has also forewarned His Holiness Pope of the possibility that the Government of Sri Lanka may utilize this visit to serve its political purposes and has urged the Pope to visit Mu'l'liavaaykkaal and Madu Church during his visit to the island.
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[TamilNet, Sunday, 13 July 2014, 23:05 GMT]
“No one is interested in getting compensation before establishing the truth of what had happened to his or her kith and kin reported missing. What the Sri Lankan regime attempts is to reduce the international impact of the reported complains through the SL presidential commission,” said Rev. Fr. E. Sebamalai blaming the commission for only wasting time and not acting upon the reports of over 3,000 complaints that had been already handed over to it. “This commission is also an eyewash move, as in the past, to buy time and escape from any international legal action,” he further said.
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[TamilNet, Saturday, 12 July 2014, 08:53 GMT]
Completely ignoring the unanimous demand of the Tamil Nadu assembly for India to boycot commercial ties with genocidal Sri Lanka, the Indian Minister of External Affairs, Ms Sushma Swaraj, has strengthened New Delhi’s ties with Colombo by promoting a $1bn garment-manufacturing town for Sri Lanka’s Garments Export industry in Visakhapatnam, a military cum strategic harbour city in the state of Andhra Pradesh. The project will be serving the US and British corporate giants in the garment market such as Victoria’s Secret (USA), Hanes (USA) Tommy Hilfiger (USA), Nike (USA), Gap (USA), Marks & Spencer (UK) and Next (UK) circumventing any moral objection related to genocidal Sri Lanka. Establishment centric Indian media was highlighting the case as employment to 60,000 people in India while activists in Tamil Nadu were preparing their response to the latest move by the BJP government.
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[TamilNet, Tuesday, 08 July 2014, 14:08 GMT]
A South African delegation, comprising South Africa's Special Envoy to Sri Lanka and South Sudan, Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa and Nomaindia Mfeketo, the deputy minister of South African International Relations and Cooperation, visited Jaffna on Tuesday and spent one hour with Northern Provincial Council (NPC) Chief Minister CV Wigneswaran. Addressing the press following his meeting with the South African delegation, Mr Wigneswaran said Mr Ramaphosa assured him that the 'South African involvement' would not be contradictory to the 'political initiatives' by New Delhi and to the Geneva-based war-crime process supported by the Western countries.
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[TamilNet, Monday, 07 July 2014, 14:59 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lankan military, which recently interfered in cancelling the workshops organised for the journalists from the North and East, has now sent a threatening circular to all Non Governmental Organizations instructing them to put an immediate end to the practices of “press conferences, training for journalists and dissemination of press releases which is beyond their mandate.” Colombo’s genocidal military, which is preoccupied with sustaining the gagged condition in the occupied country of Eezham Tamils, is strongly opposed to any attempt to empower the journalists in the North and East. The SL military is also targeting to destablize the civil and political groups that help people to democratically mobilise against the structural genocide.
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[TamilNet, Monday, 07 July 2014, 10:58 GMT]
Following an urgent hearing of an application from refugee advocates in Australia, the High Court in Austrlia has refused to allow the Australian Government to hand over the 153 Eezham Tamil refugees to Sri Lankan authorities, delivering an interim injunction until Tuesday afternoon, news reports from Australia said Monday. The latest development comes following a controversial move by the Australian authorities that handed over 41 asylum seekers back to the Sri Lankan military after the so-called processing of their asylum applications at the sea.
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[TamilNet, Sunday, 06 July 2014, 17:55 GMT]
District and divisional secretaries in Vavuniyaa district have been receiving increasing number of complaints in recent times on alleged land appropriation by the occupying Sri Lankan military in the district, news sources in Vavuniyaa said. Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian from Vavuniyaa Mr Sivasakthi Ananthan confirmed the reports stating that even the AGA of Vavuniyaa division, Ms S. Karnan was producing a list detailing the complaints of land grab by the SL military amounting to 398 acres in recent times.
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[TamilNet, Saturday, 05 July 2014, 23:27 GMT]
While an occupying military is appropriating lands of Eezham Tamils in Ampaa’rai district in favour of an ethnic group, another group is buying lands deploying large sums of money with the backing of ministers in the ruling alliance. Eezham Tamils are also side-lined in the public sector employment, said All Ceylon Workers Association leader S. Loganathan on Saturday. The conduct of certain ministers aligned with the ruling Colombo government is sabotaging the emerging understanding between the Tamils and Muslims, he said.
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[TamilNet, Thursday, 03 July 2014, 20:33 GMT]
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Ms Jayalalithaa registered her disapproval over a counter affidavit filed by the Indian Ministry of External Affairs in the Madras High Court that stated that Tamil Nadu fishermen have no traditional fishing rights in the islet of Katchatheevu. In a letter addressed to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday, the Chief Minister questioned whether this affidavit had been prepared by the earlier UPA regime, and further reiterated her demand for the retrieval of Katchatheevu.
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[TamilNet, Tuesday, 01 July 2014, 16:55 GMT]
There have been reports that 153 Tamil asylum seekers fleeing from the island of Sri Lanka might have been handed over by Australia to the genocidal Sri Lanka Navy. While there is an information blackout on the fate of the refugees, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott has refused to comment on the situation. "I'm not going to comment on the operational detail of what happens on the water," he told ABC radio on Tuesday. Further, Tamil activists working on refugee issues say that they have lost all contact with this batch of asylum seekers over 3 days back.
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