Victims coerced to produce false affidavits on controversial birth control in Vanni

[TamilNet, Thursday, 05 December 2013, 23:49 GMT]
Colombo has instructed Tamil health officials in Ki’linochchi district to obtain ‘affidavits’ from women who were subjected to a controversial coercive population control in three coastal villages of the district. The women are being approached to sign a document stating that they received subdermal implants on their own request for contraceptive protection. The latest move has come as the women, who were coerced to receive a long-term hormonal birth control implant inserted under the skin of their upper arm, have been complaining of side effects such as blood pressure, weight gain, irregular periods as well as traumatic stress after 2 months of the birth control experiment by the SL State. On 30 November, a 26-year-old woman, who was one of more than 50 victims subjected to contraceptive control, died at Jaffna hospital after a mysterious infection.
Full story >>

Fr Johnpillai reveals details of death threat by alleged SL operatives

[TamilNet, Thursday, 28 November 2013, 17:21 GMT]
Parish Priest of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Trincomalee, on Thursday, described, in an email released to media through the Catholic mission sources in the East how two armed men, claiming to be Sri Lankan intelligence operatives threatened him on 26 November. When the priest asked them to show proof, they refused. But, as the questioning was rapidly becoming a heated argument, one of the operatives suddenly told the priest that he would give him proof of his identity, caught Fr Johnpillai by his priestly garb, pushed him against the wall pointing a pistol at his head and threatening to shoot him.
Full story >>

SL military operatives issue death threat to Catholic priest in Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Thursday, 28 November 2013, 08:06 GMT]
Pointing their gun at the parish priest of Our Lady of Gaudalupe church, unidentified persons who came in motorbike that had no number plate, issued death threat to Fr. S.S. Johnpillai in Trincomalee city. The incident took place around 9:00 p.m. on 26 November. The gunmen blamed that the priest was praying on the birthday of LTTE leader V. Pirapaharan.
Full story >>

SL military threatens Tamil Catholic priests in Jaffna, Mannaar

[TamilNet, Saturday, 23 November 2013, 19:38 GMT]
The intelligence operatives of the occupying Sri Lankan military have threatened Tamil Catholic priests in Mannaar and Jaffna, who have been active in exposing the genocide of Eezham Tamils by the Sri Lankan State. The threats against the priests in escalated following the visit by UN Human Rights Commissioner for Human Rights and have topped after British PM visited North on 15 November. The Catholic priests were active in exposing the recent genocidal experiment of birth control carried out by the Sri Lankan authorities and the priests joined the peaceful march by the kith and kin of the missing persons when they wanted to berate their plight to the visiting British PM and the foreign journalists who accompanied him to Jaffna.
Full story >>

Australian PM's conduct at CHOGM shameful: Bishop Pat Power

[TamilNet, Friday, 22 November 2013, 16:45 GMT]
As Australian media on Friday reported that 79 Tamil asylum seekers were being sent back to Colombo amidst the controversial ties between the Sri Lankan Government and the Australian Government were further exposed in ‘Sri Lanka CHOGM’ last week, Canberra-based retired Bishop Pat Power, long an outspoken critic of Rome, has criticised both the Prime Minister of Australia Tony Abbot and the Catholic Church on the controversial Sri Lanka policy.
Full story >>

Family of Tamil activist threatened in Mannaar after ‘Sri Lanka CHOGM’

[TamilNet, Friday, 22 November 2013, 14:05 GMT]
Sri Lankan Military Intelligence operatives have threatened the wife of a Tamil activist in Mannaar, while she was at her house with her 2 months old baby and a 5-year-old child on Thursday. Her husband, Jude Bashil Sosai (Sunesh) was at forefront in the demonstration held in Jaffna on 15 November demanding the attention by the visiting British PM David Cameron. The threat by alleged SL military operatives was reported on Thursday when Mr Sunesh was on his way to attend a meeting in Colombo. The president of the Citizens' Committee of Mannaar District, Rev. Fr. E. Sebamalai, in a letter addressed to SL President Mahinda Rajapaksa on behalf of the citizens' committee, on Friday said the Committee suspected Sri Lankan armed forces for the threat issued on Mannaar District Coordinator of National Fisheries Society Organization (NAFSO) Mr Sunesh and his family.
Full story >>

Sri Lanka's war-crimes culpability raised in Australian Parliament

[TamilNet, Saturday, 16 November 2013, 14:21 GMT]
Lee Rhiannon, a Greens Party Senator from New South Wales, during a debate in the Australian parliament following her return from Sri Lanka on the eve of the Commonwealth meeting [CHOGM], said that the situation in the NorthEast under Mahinda Rajapakse regime is dire, that the Sri Lanka army's involvement in civilian life is pervasive and Australia is turning a blind eye to credible allegations of continuing torture, rape and crimes against humanity reported by respected Rights groups and by several video documentaries from Channel-4. Rhiannon pointed out the increasingly voiced broad consensus from several countries for an international investigations into the war-crimes by the Rajapakse regime, and praised the CHOGM boycott of several Prime Ministers in spotlighting the Sri Lanka's continuing dismal rights record and lack of accountabililty for war-crimes.
Full story >>

British PM disappoints families of missing persons in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Friday, 15 November 2013, 12:27 GMT]
Demanding to witness their plight in person, hundreds of kith and kin of missing persons took to the venue in Jaffna on Friday when the visiting British Prime Minister David Camaron was scheduled to meet with Northern Provincial Council (NPC) Chief Minister CV Wigneswaran and R. Sampanthan of the TNA at Jaffna Public Library. British PM David Cameron was taken to the meeting without the possibility of even witnessing the mothers and the family members who were carrying the photographs of their loved ones.
Full story >>

JPC urges immediate assistance to victims subjected to coercive population control

[TamilNet, Friday, 08 November 2013, 16:56 GMT]
Widespread complaints have been registered from the Tamil women in three villages of Ki'linochchi district that they are suffering from side effects such as blood pressure, weight gain, irregular periods as well as traumatic stress, two months after they have been subjected to coercive population control by the occupying Colombo using Progestogen-only subdermal implants inserted into their body, said the Chairman of Justice and Peace Commission (JPC) of the Catholic Diocese of Jaffna, Fr. S.V.B Mangalarajah in a fresh report issued on Friday. Terming the population control experimented on Tamil women in Vanni as “Mu'l'livaaykkaal-2”, the JPC has urged the provincial health ministry under the newly elected Northern Provincial Council to do the needful to remove the implants and assist the victims to return to normal lives.
Full story >>

Detention of Kolathur Mani under India's NSA act condemned

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 06 November 2013, 22:43 GMT]
The recent arrest and continued detention of Kolathur S. Mani, a veteran Tamil activist in Tamil Nadu and the founder-president of Dravidar Viduthalaik Kazhakam (DVK), has evoked strong reactions from Tamil national activists across the State. The Tamil Nadu Police took Mr Mani into custody following allegations that some DVK party members were behind violent incidents against Central Government installations in Tamil Nadu as a form reaction against Indian External Affairs Minister's announcement that he would participate in the controversial CHOGM meet to be held in Colombo. The General Secretary of DVK, Viduthalai Rajendran, categorically denied Kolathur Mani's involvement. Stating that Mr Mani had publicly distanced from violent acts as a form of protest, Mr Rajendran urged the authorities to relase the leader of the DVK movement.
Full story >>

Catholic peace group in Jaffna details structural genocide to Apostolic Nuncio

[TamilNet, Monday, 21 October 2013, 15:28 GMT]
The Chairman of Justice and Peace Commission of the Catholic Diocese of Jaffna, Fr. S.V.B Mangalarajah, has written a detailed letter on Friday to the permanent diplomatic representative of the Holy See in Colombo, Most Rev. Dr. Joseph Spiteri, elucidating the structural genocide being carried out by occupying Sri Lanka on the country of Eezham Tamils. The letter comes following the move by the Colombo's colonial regime handing over a report to the Apostolic Nuncio, detailing the so-called development activities carried out in North and East. The JPC Chairman was categoric in his letter that external ‘development’ cannot substitute the settling of the political solution and urged the Vatican to exert political pressure on Sri Lanka to put forward a political solution framework. The detailed letter summarises the genocidal programme of the Sri Lankan State under 10 topics.
Full story >>

Dalu-wathu-mulla
Dalu-potha-gama

[TamilNet, Monday, 07 October 2013, 03:49 GMT]
The betel-garden corner.
The village of the sprouting range (recent paddy fields).
Full story >>

New Delhi mission in Jaffna launches war crimes defender’s poetry projection

[TamilNet, Thursday, 26 September 2013, 13:14 GMT]
New Delhi’s Deputy High Commission in Jaffna will be launching on Monday an anthology of poetry, “Mirrored Images”, compiled by Prof Rajiva Wijesinha, said a press note from the diplomatic mission on Wednesday. Prof Rajiva Wijesinha has gone on record on several occasions in internationally defending the Rajapaksa regime from war crimes accusations. He was often seen coming out with blatant denials of the war crimes committed by the Sri Lankan State. The National Book Trust of India entrusted the editorship of the book to Prof Wijesinha and according to him, the anthology “contributes to the development of a common Sri Lankan identity.” The anthology was first released by New Delhi’s External affairs Minister Salman Khurshid, followed by Colombo’s missions in Canada.
Full story >>

Voters’ attendance in Jaffna reached 50% at 2:00 p.m.

[TamilNet, Saturday, 21 September 2013, 10:38 GMT]
Despite the psy-ops manipulations and various harassments by the occupying SL military in at several places of Jaffna peninsula, the participation of people in the provincial council election in Jaffna peninsula has reached almost 50% by 2:00 p.m., independent election monitors told media. A Tamil National Alliance politician and deputy chairman of Chaavakachcheari Pirathesa Chapai (PS), was almost abducted and tortured by the intelligence operatives of the SL military near a voting booth in Thenmaraadchi and when fellow TNA supporters came in a vehicle to his rescue, those who had abducted the TNA politician escaped into the SLA 52-4 Brigade command base at Vara’ni in Jaffna. Following this, a group of SL soldiers who came from the camp opened fire. The vehicle of TNA supporters has sustained heavy damage in the firing.
Full story >>

Katu-pælælla, Kanu-pælælla

[TamilNet, Monday, 19 August 2013, 00:36 GMT]
The entrance shutter made of thorns
The gate panel made of poles or logs
Full story >>

Archaeological Report on Maanthai comes after 29 years

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 14 August 2013, 22:36 GMT]
Archaeological report on the excavations at the ancient port city of Maanthai (Thirukeatheesvaram) in the Mannaar district of the country of Eezham Tamils, conducted between the years 1980 and 1984 and co-directed by John Carswell then from the University of Chicago, has finally seen the light of publication this June. Edited by John Carswell, Siran Deraniyagala and Alan Graham, and copyrighted to the Archaeological Department of Sri Lanka, the publication supported by Ceramica-Stiftung Basel has been released by the publishers Linden Soft Verlag, Aichwald in Germany. Professor Carswell, now turning 83, has succeeded in presenting the material he had excavated, which would have otherwise been lost forever with the kind of State in the island.
Full story >>

Mannaar

[TamilNet, Friday, 09 August 2013, 00:52 GMT]
The raised place (of sand)
Full story >>

SL-UGC steps up Sinhalicisation of Batticaloa University

[TamilNet, Thursday, 08 August 2013, 22:34 GMT]
Sri Lanka's University Grant Commission (UGC) has been admitting more Sinhala students to the universities in the North and East. About 600 to 700 Sinhala students have been enrolled to the faculties of Arts and Culture, Management, Science and Agriculture in the Eastern University (EUSL) in Batticaloa alone, news sources in the East said. A Sri Lankan police station has been established inside the University premises in the name of providing protection to Sinhala students. The SL policemen have been monitoring the activities of Tamil-speaking students with the assistance of paramilitary groups. A Buddha statue has been declared opened last month at the presence of the Vice Chancellor inside the campus by the Buddhist Students Forum, which was backed by the UGC.
Full story >>

New Delhi insists on use of Hindi script for Konkani language

[TamilNet, Sunday, 04 August 2013, 07:14 GMT]
New Delhi Establishment’s Sahitya Academy insists on Konkani language, spoken in coastal Maharashtra, Goa, coastal Karnataka and parts of Kerala, to present literature in the Nagari script of Hindi/ Sanskrit, for consideration of its awards, said a feature appeared in the Economic & Political Weekly (EPW), dated 03 August. At present, the Konkani language, which was recognized as a major national language of India in 1992, is written in 5 scripts: Kannada, Roman, Malayalam, Nagari and Persian-Arabic, depending on the State where it is spoken. 45 per cent of the Konkani speakers, the largest group, live in Karnataka, where the script of Konkani is Kannada. 40 per cent of the speakers are in Goa, where the language is mostly written in Roman.
Full story >>

Habitual detraction of due justice to Eezham Tamils continues in Indian media

[TamilNet, Friday, 19 July 2013, 04:51 GMT]
“In order to allay Sinhalese apprehensions, iron-clad guarantees should be provided that devolution to provinces should not lead to demand for separation,” writes V. Suryanarayan, in an opinion feature “Ethnic riddle in Sri Lanka,” appeared in The New Indian Express on Wednesday. “The Achenese model should be of relevance because like the Sinhalese, the Javanese are also opposed to federalism. The special autonomy status to Acheh, it must be underlined, is within the constitutional framework of a unitary Indonesia,” he further writes. Whatever that has happened or continue to happen, Eezham Tamils should never get independence and the Sinhalese should be appeased at any cost, even in their opposition to federalism, is the thrust of the opinion, on which the impunity of genocidal Sri Lanka is firmly anchored, responds TamilNet political commentator in Colombo.
Full story >>