Abductions increase in Colombo

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 22 April 2008, 08:35 GMT]
Four Tamils were abducted by unknown persons at Peliyagoda, Kotahena in Colombo and in Negombo. One of them was later released at Peliyagoda. Relatives of those abducted have lodged complaints with the respective police stations.
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Spectre of abductions scare Batticaloa residents

[TamilNet, Thursday, 17 April 2008, 13:04 GMT]
More than 300 Tamil youths from areas ranging from Poththuvil to Vaazhaichcheanai have been abducted in Batticaloa district in the past, allegedly by Special Task Force (STF) commandos and paramilitary groups, according to figures registered with Batticaloa Human Rights Commission (HRC) by the relatives of the missing. Of the 300 reported cases, eleven persons in January, eleven in February and fourteen in March are reported missing this year, HRC sources said. Most of the persons have gone missing in areas near government controlled Batticaloa city.
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"Sri Lanka at the brink"

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 08 April 2008, 12:26 GMT]
Advocating a "federal accommodation for Sri Lanka's Tamil minority," Dr Whitehall in an article on Australia's News Weekly says: "In the first eight months of 2007, an estimated 1,212 Tamils were murdered or disappeared, according to the Sri Lanka-based Law and Society Trust, which reports that Tamils to have been "overwhelmingly affected". Of these victims, 23 were aid and church workers, eight worked with the media, and 68 were children. Most of the abuses occurred in Jaffna, the historic capital of the Tamil region, which is now "occupied" by over 50,000 Sri Lankan troops. Many of the reported abuses have occurred within "high security zones" under the control of those troops."
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740 disappearances in Jaffna peninsula in two years

[TamilNet, Friday, 04 April 2008, 05:11 GMT]
The number of persons reported missing has reached 740 during the period from December 2005 up to the present, according to complaints registered with the Human Rights Office (HRC) in Jaffna. The number of persons disappeared is more than 740 as many parents and family members of the disappeared persons do not complain at the HRC Jaffna for fear of falling victims to Sri Lanka Army (SLA) troops and SLA-backed paramilitaries, alleged to be the abductors, sources in Jaffna said.
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No foreign monitors for eastern polls - Bogollagama

[TamilNet, Thursday, 03 April 2008, 19:49 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama said Thursday that there would be no independent monitoring of the forthcoming elections to the Eastern Provincial Council. Meanwhile, whilst addressing a strategic think tank in London earlier this week, Mr. Bogollagama was challenged by the Times newspaper over his government’s bar on foreign media, a statement issued Thursday by the British Tamil Forum, an expatriate lobby group, said.
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Colombo offensive claims civil victims- Washington Post

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 01 April 2008, 11:50 GMT]
"...[U]nder a recent military offensive to wipe out those rebels [from LTTE], government forces have abducted hundreds of members of the Tamil minority group, including civilians, according to human rights groups. Many of the "disappeared" never turn up again," Washington Post said in an article in the Tuesday edition, adding, "Abductions are carried out in various ways, according to activists and relatives of those who have disappeared. Sometimes Tamil men of fighting age are rounded up at checkpoints, hurried into white vans and never heard from again. Sometimes they are arrested with little explanation in house-to-house raids at night."
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Not possible to remain mute spectators: Ramadoss to Indian PM

[TamilNet, Sunday, 30 March 2008, 09:16 GMT]
Labelling Sri Lanka "a failed state, a condominium of anarchy, and a shame on humanity" that "terrorized its own Tamil citizens," Dr. S. Ramadoss, leader of Paaddaa'li Makka'l Kadchi (PMK, Toilers' Party) and a constituent ally of the Congress-led Indian government, said that it was not possible to remain "passing by-standers to this human tragedy at our doorstep" in his letter to Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Saturday. "The sixty million Tamils in India cannot wait and watch while their sisters and brothers are being decimated across the Palk Straits and Gulf of Mannar," he said.
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Jaffna student plays reflect society's undercurrent of fear

[TamilNet, Saturday, 29 March 2008, 00:02 GMT]
Traditional folk dramas and modern plays were showcased in a drama festival organized by the Outdoor Stage Group of Jaffna University Thursday at Kailasapathy Hall. The silent play named ‘Moodi’ (The Lid) in which actors had their faces covered by cloths, expressing the current denial of freedom of expression and movement in Jaffna peninsula, students spokesperson said. The play also had scenes that portrayed the fear of arrests, killings, and abductions that haunt the residents of the peninsula, the spokesperson added.
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South African media regrets the act of Indian consulate

[TamilNet, Thursday, 27 March 2008, 20:35 GMT]
It would have been better if a representative of the Indian Consulate had accepted the memorandum from the peaceful protestors, even if the consulate was not in agreement with their views, aired the South Africa Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) in its morning news last Friday while reporting the demonstration conducted in front of the Indian consulate in Durban the previous day by the Indian community in South Africa in support of the Tamil cause in Sri Lanka.
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Jaffna HRC official receives death threats

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 26 March 2008, 06:08 GMT]
Unidentified men phoned an inquiry officer of Jaffna Human Rights Commission (HRC) twice Monday night and issued death threats, and the official has registered a complaint at the HRC Head Office in Colombo, sources in Jaffna said. Death threats and intimidations issued to HRC officials who document rights violations in Jaffna peninsula have caused many to leave the peninsula in the past, the sources added.
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Jaffna women group calls for end to violence

[TamilNet, Saturday, 22 March 2008, 04:47 GMT]
More than 500 women attending a meeting organized by the Jaffna based Centre for Women and Development (CWD), held at the auditorium of Jaffna Public library Friday, expressed unified voice against the escalating violence in the peninsula in general, and the variety of problems faced by women in particular, and issued a media communiqué detailing a host of social issues unique to the female population in North. The meeting was chaired by Mrs.Saroja Sivachandran, coordinator of CWD.
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Rights violations in Batticaloa escalate

[TamilNet, Thursday, 20 March 2008, 12:26 GMT]
Nearly one hundred incidents of human rights violations of arrest, abduction, forced disappearance and intimidation committed against government officials in Batticaloa district have been registered with Human Rights Commission (HRC) Batticaloa District office, according to Batticaloa HRC sources. In January 2008 alone 63 complaints of rights violations against government officials in Batticaloa were registered while a total of 37 complaints were lodged in February.
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IFJ condemns attack on journalist family

[TamilNet, Monday, 17 March 2008, 12:04 GMT]
The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), a media watchdog, in a press release issued Monday, condemned the attack on the father and sister of journalist Munusami Parameshwari in Gampola, in the Kandy district, on March 14. Parameshwari has been in hiding after recent threats against her life.
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Boston Globe advocates "Self-rule in a confederal structure for Tamil region"

[TamilNet, Monday, 17 March 2008, 10:01 GMT]
Pointing to Sri Lanka's documented pattern of "abductions of civilians by security forces," and Rajapakse Government's complicity in "large scale disappearances," Boston Globe in an editorial Monday said: "[t]he bottom line is Sri Lanka's conflict is political, and it must be resolved by political means. A lasting solution will require that the central government grant meaningful self-rule to the Tamil region, perhaps in a confederal structure that maintains the unity of the country. Continuing attempts to resolve the conflict militarily can only produce more suffering and more war."
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Abductions escalate in Colombo

[TamilNet, Monday, 17 March 2008, 09:48 GMT]
Armed men in police uniform arriving in a van bearing registration number 250 7363 Sunday around 7:00 a.m at Sangamiththa Mawata in Colombo abducted a Tamil youth who had come from Jaffna with his mother to go abroad, according to the complaint made by the his mother to Kotahena (Koddaagncheanai) police. Meanwhile, a Tamil student of Moratuwa University, abducted on March 4 from Colpetty in Colombo, is still missing. Abduction of Tamils in Western Province by armed men in white van have escalated in recent days despite the global attention on Sri Lanka's Human Rights violations.
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Colombo irked by US Rights report

[TamilNet, Friday, 14 March 2008, 14:53 GMT]
The 2007 Country Report of Human Rights Practices in Sri Lanka released by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor of the U.S. State Department has created shockwaves within the Rajapakse Government according to Media reports in Colombo Friday. Sri Lanka’s Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama had called on the US Ambassador in Colombo, Robert O Blake, to register “Sri Lanka’s serious concerns” on the report, Colombo media reported.
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British parliamentarians call for UK to rein in Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 12 March 2008, 04:30 GMT]
A group of Parliamentarians from all of Britain’s main political parties Tuesday condemned the assassination last week of Tamil National Alliance (TNA) MP K Sivanesan and, lamenting the recent exit of the international panel overseeing rights abuses probes in Sri Lanka, called on the UK government to take all possible steps to ensure that Government of Sri Lanka plays by accepted international rules.
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India risks indictment in war crimes, cautions LTTE

[TamilNet, Monday, 10 March 2008, 20:05 GMT]
Liberation Tigers of Tamileelam (LTTE) from its Head Quarters in Vanni on Monday released a statement condemning the Indian 'State welcome' extended to Sri Lanka Army Chief Lt. Gen. Sarath Fonseka and the statements made by Indian military chiefs in this context. "The Indian State must take the responsibility for the ethnic genocide of the Tamils that will be carried out by the Sinhala military, re-invigorated by such moves of the Indian State," the statement said. "LTTE wishes to point out to the Indian State that by this historic blunder, it will continue to subject the Eelam Tamils to misery and put them in the dangerous situation of having to face ethnic genocide on a massive scale."
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"Elect me or face conscription," paramilitary operative threatens voters

[TamilNet, Sunday, 09 March 2008, 17:11 GMT]
A key paramilitary operative of the TMVP participating in the local elections of Ea'raavoor pattu Piratheasa Chapai (PS), Irasaiah Satheeskumar alias Anpumani, has threatened Tamil families in Vanthaa'rumoolai that unless the voters elect him, he will forcibly conscript one child per household, residents of Vanthaa'rumoolai said.
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Diaspora groups demand international action over MP’s slaying

[TamilNet, Saturday, 08 March 2008, 02:52 GMT]
Tamil Diaspora organisations Friday condemned the killing of Tamil parliamentarian K. Sivanesan Thursday in a fragmentation mine attack blamed on Sri Lankan commandos and called for international action against the Colombo government. Pointing out that Mr. Sivanesan is the latest Tamil MP to be murdered by suspected Army-backed paramilitaries or members of the security forces in recent years, expatriate organisations from Australia, Canada and Britain called for the Sri Lankan government to be held accountable and for international sanctions to be imposed.
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