Tamil journalists still face danger - RSF

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 01 May 2002, 19:02 GMT]
The Reporters Sans Frontiers, the French media watchdog, said in its annual report on press freedom released Wednesday that working conditions for Tamil journalists remain very dangerous in Sri Lanka, especially when they report on human rights violations. "They are easily accused of supporting the Tamil Tigers guerrilla movement. The 1998 Emergency Law allows security forces to arrest anyone suspected of maintaining relations with this banned separatist organisation. But how can anyone work in the north and east of the country without having contacts with the Tamil Tigers, who are everywhere?" the RSF report said.
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Fishermen's protest shuts down Jaffna secretariat

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 30 January 2002, 12:03 GMT]
More than a seven hundred fishermen began a protest sit in front of the Jaffna district secretariat Wednesday morning from 7.30 a.m. The fishermen blocked government officials from entering the Jaffna district secretariat. They vowed to continue the protest if the government doesnít take steps to lift the ban and restrictions imposed by the Sri Lankan security forces on fishing in Jaffna.
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Amnesty slams zero prosecutions for rape in military custody

[TamilNet, Monday, 28 January 2002, 12:48 GMT]
Complaints of rape in custody by army, police and navy officials increased markedly in Sri Lanka last year, Amnesty International said in a new report published Monday. Amnesty said rapes in the context of armed conflict "are now recognized as a war crime and, when committed on a systematic basis or large scale, a crime against humanity."
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SLTMA slams military harassment of Thinakathir

[TamilNet, Sunday, 30 December 2001, 09:20 GMT]
Sri Lanka's Tamil Media Alliance Saturday protested to the Ministry of Mass Communication over the attack on Dharmaratnam Sivaram, a well known defence analyst and journalist, by "persons connected with the security forces." Mr. Sivaram, a Colombo-based contributor to TamilNet, suffered extensive injuries in the attack which occurred at the office of the Thinakathir newspapers in Batticaloa town late on Wednesday night.
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Senior Tamil Journalist assaulted

[TamilNet, Thursday, 27 December 2001, 09:09 GMT]
Mr.D.Sivaram, a leading Tamil journalist and Mr.Wijetharan, of 'Thinakathir' editorial were wounded when they were attacked by unidentified men, around 10.30 p.m. Wednesday. The journalists were attacked by men armed with clubs who had arrived in a van to the Thinakathir office, a independent Tamil daily published in Batticaloa.
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US, EU endorse Sri Lanka polls as 'free and fair'

[TamilNet, Saturday, 08 December 2001, 12:00 GMT]
The United States Friday condemned the violence during the Sri Lankan elections Wednesday, and called for the perpetrators to be brought to justice. The State Department said however, the result of the polls, in which the main opposition United National Party swept the former ruling People's Alliance from power, was "basically free and fair."
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SLA allows EPDP, PA to rig at bridge

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 05 December 2001, 16:30 GMT]
A lecturer at the Jaffna University and three undergraduates were attacked by an armed gang of the Eelam People’s Democratic Party on the Palam Road near Arasadi junction close to Jaffna. In Batticaloa, a grenade was lobbed at the residence of the Tamil National Alliance candidate Indrakumar Prasanna in the heart of the high security zone in the eastern town. Election officials in Batticaloa said that although the Sri Lanka army claimed that it had barred Tamils from coming through the entry point at Vavunathivu near the eastern town for security reasons, goons of the People’s Alliance and the EPDP rigged thousands of votes at the clustered booths here from morning.
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EPDP on rampage in southeastern village

[TamilNet, Monday, 03 December 2001, 08:31 GMT]
Two Tamil National Alliance campaign offices were set on fire and three TNA supporters' houses were damaged by a group of heavily armed cadres of the Eelam People's Democratic Party, a major coalition partner of Sri Lanka's ruling People's Alliance regime, in Komari, about 96 kilometres south of Batticaloa, Sunday night, Police sources in Ampara said.
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Jaffna students burn Tamil minister’s effigy

[TamilNet, Thursday, 29 November 2001, 14:02 GMT]
The effigy of Mr. Douglas Devananda, Minister for Rehabilitation and Reconstruction (North) in Peoples' Alliance Government who is the leader of the Eelam Peoples Democratic Party was set on fire Thursday around 1.30 p.m. by Jaffna undergrads on the campus grounds of the Jaffna University in Tinnelvely, Jaffna. Meanwhile, people in the village of Pannaikattaiadi in Pt. Pedro in Jaffna beat up an armed gang of EPDP cadres who had allegedly attempted to kill a United National Party candidate Thursday morning around 11 a.m. The villagers seized two assault rifles and a pistol from the EPDP cadres and handed them over to the Police, sources said.
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'Colombo's largesse stained with Tamil blood' -Selvam

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 14 November 2001, 21:35 GMT]
"Every rupee that the Sri Lankan government gives you through its quisling to buy your vote is stained with the blood of our people who were killed in places of refuge and worship, the tears of our women who were gang raped here in Mannar and in every part of the north and east. The Chandrika regime is liberally spending money through its Tamil lackey to bribe our people, to pacify them and thereby show the world that our struggle for justice is a terrorist problem. The people of Mannar have always been patriotic.
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Presidential guard organised Ponnambalam murder - paper

[TamilNet, Sunday, 11 November 2001, 23:21 GMT]
A former member of Sri Lanka's Presidential Security Division found shot dead earlier this month was involved in orchestrating the assassination of former Tamil politician, Kumar Ponnambalam, the Sunday Leader newspaper reported this week. The paper also named the assassin, said to be a former Police constable.
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Jaffna missing persons' parents continue protest

[TamilNet, Saturday, 10 November 2001, 08:14 GMT]
"Arrests, deaths and destruction will continue in our land until our struggle succeeds. To put an end to such tragedies we have to succeed in our people's struggle. If we speak out for our nation then we shall win our struggle for which blood is being spilled," said Rev. Fr. T. Jeyakumar, the head of the Human Development Centre (HUDEC), addressing a demonstration and protest sit in near the Muniappar temple in Jaffna town Saturday by more than 200 parents and relatives of persons who went missing after being arrested by the Sri Lanka army in 1996-97 in the northern peninsula. The protest was organised by the Missing Persons' Guardian Association (MPGA) and the Jaffna Mothers' Front. "We will continue the protest tomorrow as well," the secretary of the MPGA told Tamilnet.
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Fear said stifling Batticaloa massacre memory

[TamilNet, Sunday, 09 September 2001, 15:51 GMT]
The brutal massacre of 184 Tamil villagers, including 42 children below the age of ten and several pregnant women, on 9 September 1990 in the Sri Lanka army camp in Saththurukondaan, on the outskirts of the Batticaloa town was commemorated Sunday in Valaichenai. A public meeting was organised by the Koralaipattu Human Rights Organisation (KHRO) in Valaichenai town to mark the eleventh anniversary of the massacre.
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Attack said to mark Koneswary rape and murder

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 22 August 2001, 04:22 GMT]
The Liberation Tigers in Batticaloa said that Tuesday's attack on the Sri Lanka Police detachement in the island's eastern province was carried out to mark the death of Koneswary Murugesapillai, a thirty five year old mother of three who was gang raped and murdered in front of her family allegedly by a group of Policemen from the Central Camp Police station on 21 August 1997. Koneswary was killed, according to her family, when the Policemenmen exploded a grenade on her lower abdomen to destroy evidence of the rape. None of the perpetrators of the woman's rape and murder have been brought to book so far.
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Woman gang raped, mother assaulted

[TamilNet, Monday, 09 July 2001, 05:25 GMT]
A woman allegedly gang raped by Sri Lanka army soldiers in Meesalai on Saturday night was admitted to the Manthikai hospital in Jaffna Sunday. Hospital sources said that the woman has been raped brutally. The women's mother who had attempted to stop the soldiers from molesting her daughter was severely assaulted and has also been admitted to the hospital for treatment, sources said.
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Girl raped in Police checkpoint

[TamilNet, Monday, 25 June 2001, 15:23 GMT]
Three Policemen on duty at a checkpoint in downtown Colombo were arrested Monday for gang raping a girl in the early hours of the morning on Sunday. The girl was returning from work with a boy when she was stopped at the Police checkpoint near the Central Theatre in Maradana in downtown Colombo around 4.45 a.m. The Policemen had allegedly gang raped the girl after forcing her inside their checkpoint by threatening her that they would arrest and detain her on suspicion that she is a spy of the Liberation Tigers if she refused to get into the bunker. Any member of the Sri Lankan security forces regardless of his/her rank can arrest anyone if she/he has “reasonable ground” to suspect that the person has links with the Liberation Tigers under the provisions of the Emergency Regulations (18.1).
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Trinco citizens call for UNHRC presence

[TamilNet, Friday, 20 April 2001, 16:49 GMT]
“The presence of the Geneva based United Nations Human Rights Commission in Sri Lanka should be made a reality to monitor crimes against innocent Tamils, especially women, by members of Armed Forces who are almost 100 percent Sinhalese”, states a memorandum sent to several international human rights organizations Friday by leading citizens of Trincomalee.
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Trinco lawyers condemn Mannar rape

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 03 April 2001, 15:04 GMT]
"Lawyers cannot be mere onlookers when injustices are done to civilians by law enforcement authorities," said the President of the Trincomalee Bar Association Mr.Arumugam Jegasothy presiding over the special meeting convened Tuesday morning to pass a resolution condemning the brutal and beastly crimes committed on two Tamil women in Mannar by law enforcement personnel when the victims were under their custody.
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Government attitudes may contribute to rapes -Sampanthan

[TamilNet, Sunday, 01 April 2001, 20:39 GMT]
"It would be pertinent to raise the question as to whether pugnacious statements made by persons in high positions and the expressed determination of the Government to continue with the war, contributes towards the unleashing of brutality such as rape and torture on unarmed Tamil civilians particularly Tamil females. It would appear that some service personnel think that if a Tamil is implicated even falsely with the LTTE any crime can be committed against such Tamil person" said the Secretary General of the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF), Mr.Rajavarothiam Sampanthan, in a letter to President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunge.
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Bindunuweva commission’s mandate queried

[TamilNet, Monday, 12 March 2001, 18:16 GMT]
The Sri Lankan government said Monday that it would appoint a one-man commission to probe into the massacre of the inmates of the Bindudunuweva Rehabilitation camp near the hill country town of Bandarawela. Young Tamils, mostly former guerrillas from the eastern province, were hacked to death by a well-armed Sinhala gang on 25 October last year. Some inmates were thrown into a timber-sawing machine that chopped them to pieces. The Sri Lankan Police or the government are yet to name the culprits. In statement issued Monday night the Sri Lankan government said that the President has appointed P.H.K Kulatilake, a judge of the Court of Appeal, to probe the massacre. This is the second commission of inquiry ever appointed by Colombo to probe a massacre of Tamils. “The merit of this commission and its effectiveness can be judged only when its mandate as stipulated by the government is clearly laid out”, a human rights lawyer in Colombo said.
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