Rae criticizes Conservative ad

[TamilNet, Saturday, 02 April 2011, 05:28 GMT]
Pointing out that "[t]he Tamil community is a source of pride to Canada – its members continue to make a huge contribution to our country [Canada]," Bob Rae, former Ontario Premier and a prominent Canadian politician, said the Conservative advertisement on human smuggling using the picture of the MV Sun Sea is "based on fear, and is directly prejudicial to a fair determination of refugee claims."
Full story >>

Vi'laan, Divula-pitiya, Jool-pallama

[TamilNet, Friday, 01 April 2011, 21:22 GMT]
The place of wood apple trees
The high ground of wood apple trees
The low ground of wood apple trees
Full story >>

JDS calls for immediate release of arrested Sri Lanka journalist

[TamilNet, Friday, 01 April 2011, 12:22 GMT]
Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka (JDS), an group of Tamil and Sinhalese exiled journalists from Sri Lanka condemned the "outrageious arrest" of journalist and news editor of Lankaenews website, Benett Rupasinghe, and called for his immediate release. Rupasinghe was arrested on March 31 by Sri Lanka Police which the JDS called "another act of intimidation agaisnt media freedom."
Full story >>

US initiated ‘contact groups’ to militarily weaken Eezham Tamils

[TamilNet, Friday, 01 April 2011, 12:04 GMT]
Two international ‘contact groups', one each to check LTTE fund-raising and arms purchases were initiated by the U.S, in the first half of 2006, says The Hindu article Friday, based on the US cables accessed by The Hindu through Wikileaks. A cable sent in August 2006 from the US Embassy in New Delhi discloses the composition of the contact groups for the first time: representatives of Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Switzerland, Thailand, the United Kingdom and the United States, The Hindu feature further said.
Full story >>

ITAK local councilors of North, East to take oath in Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Friday, 01 April 2011, 06:55 GMT]
76 councilors of the Ilankai Thamil Arasu Katchchi (ITAK) elected to fifteen local authorities and Chairmen and Vice Chairmen of twelve local authorities are scheduled to take oaths on April 10 Sunday morning at Trincomalee Town Hall in the presence of Mr.R.Sampanthan, parliamentary group leader of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) and the president of Ilankai Thamil Arasu Katchchi (ITAK). ITAK is the major constituent of the TNA. Earlier TNA decided to have the event on March 31 but it was later postponed to April 10 enabling Sampanthan to attend the event, party sources said.
Full story >>

Eastern University closed down indefinitely

[TamilNet, Thursday, 31 March 2011, 03:17 GMT]
While the Tamil Youth Organisation in UK was engaged in an awareness campaign for boycotting genocidal Sri Lanka in international sports, a cricket-related euphoria of the Sinhala students in the Eastern University of Sri Lanka in Batticaloa resulted in attack on Tamil students and indefinite closure of the university. Inebriated by euphoria of Sri Lanka’s victory in the cricket semi finals that took place in Colombo, the Sinhala students of the Batticaloa University entered into the hostel of the Tamil students and attacked them on Tuesday midnight. Following the incident, the SL police at the university check post that entered into the campus without permission from the Vice Chancellor also started attacking the Tamil students. As Tamil students started boycotting classes on Wednesday the university is closed down indefinitely.
Full story >>

Kadaiya-moaddai

[TamilNet, Thursday, 31 March 2011, 00:52 GMT]
The pond of Kadaiyar community
Full story >>

Mentally ill person incarcerated for 8 years in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 30 March 2011, 23:24 GMT]
50-year-old V. Jeyarajah, a mentally ill person in Jaffna Prison from 2003 onwards, arrested by Sri Lankan Police on alleged suspicion of loitering about without stated purpose was released by the Chavakachcheari Magistrates Courts Monday 29 March. Legal sources in Jaffna stated that there are a large number of Tamil youths detained in prisons mainly in the South for almost four decades even in violation of the draconian Emergency Regulations and Prevention of Terrorism Acts which gives them enormous powers over and above the normal laws.
Full story >>

TYO extends ‘Boycott Sri Lanka’ campaign to sports

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 30 March 2011, 11:26 GMT]
Using as context the quarter final of the Cricket World Cup between co-hosts Sri Lanka and England, the TYO-UK (Tamil Youth Organisation) on Saturday conducted an awareness campaign on Sri Lanka in London, on a day marked by huge protest by the TUC (Trade Union Congress) against public spending cuts. As up to a reported 500,000 demonstrators marched through central London, TYO members on the periphery handed out leaflets and gathered signatures for a postcard campaign calling on the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) to boycott Sri Lanka as a sporting partner. The effort is part of a wider campaign to encourage international boycott of Sri Lanka as a tourist destination and as a producer of goods, TYO said. The Sri Lankan cricket team is due to tour England this summer.
Full story >>

NCCT demands apology over Canadian ad labelling refugees as criminals

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 30 March 2011, 03:19 GMT]
The National Council of Canadian Tamils (NCCT) called on Prime Minister of Canada, Stephen Harper, to withdraw a Conservative party election advertisement that calls Tamil refugees as "criminals", demanded an apology to Tamil Canadians, media in Toronto reported. The ad features a photo of the MV Sun Sea which arrived off the shores of British Colombia in August last year with 491 Tamil refugees fleeing war and persecution from Sri Lanka-a country where the President, his brothers, and several Army Commanders have allegedly committed war crimes. The ad calls the Tamils aboard "criminals" who trying to abuse Canadian generosity.
Full story >>

UK Premier reaches out to Tamil Diaspora ahead of electoral reform referendum

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 30 March 2011, 02:01 GMT]
Ahead of a referendum on Britain’s biggest electoral reform in decades, the leader of the ruling Conservative Party, Prime Minister David Cameron, has reaching out to the country’s Tamil community amongst others to oppose the changes. “Every vote from the Tamil community is vital,” Mr. Cameron wrote this week to the British Tamil Conservatives (BTC), which is supporting the ‘no’ campaign. The Premier hailed the Tamil Diaspora’s contribution to British society and noted their concerns about events in Sri Lanka. “I am also fully aware that a lasting peace in Sri Lanka still needs to be won,” he wrote. The referendum on May 5 asks voters to choose between the current "first-past-the-post" system and an "alternative vote" (AV) model, similar to Australia’s. The main opposition Labour Party and the Conservatives’ ruling partner, the Liberal Democrats have declared their support for the AV.
Full story >>

TB affected on the increase among uprooted people of Vanni

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 29 March 2011, 06:10 GMT]
Several uprooted Tamil civilians from Vanni following Colombo's genocidal onslaught in Vanni and still kept in detention centres in Vavuniyaa have been diagnosed as suffering from tuberculosis (TB), according to Dr.C.Jamunananda who is in charge of the TB control unit in Jaffna district.
Full story >>

Saiva temples desecrated in East: Yogeswaran MP

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 29 March 2011, 05:53 GMT]
The desecration of Saiva temples in the eastern province cannot be allowed to go unchecked, said Batticaloa district Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian C.Yogeswaran on Monday. He made this comment after viewing the destruction of statues and other temple articles at Periyakallaa'ru a coastal village located 30 km south of Batticaloa city in the Ka'luvaagnchik-kudi division of Batticaloa district by unidentified group of persons recently.
Full story >>

Rejecting nationhood of Eezham Tamils is tactical blunder of India

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 29 March 2011, 04:22 GMT]
Students of international politics know well that India materialised an independent Bangladesh in 1971, but within a few years the USA turned it against India. Even to this day India is struggling hard to make the odds even. The same story is being re-enacted in Sri Lanka, but in a different way. India in strategic complicity decided Colombo winning a war through genocide of Tamils, but the US responsible of equal complicity and now articulating a deceptive ‘reconciliation’ paradigm, aims to emerge as the ‘ultimate saviour’ by hoodwinking Eezham Tamils through sections in the diaspora on one hand and by negotiating survival of state and regime of genocidal Colombo on the other. Failure to recognize the Eezham Tamil nation at this stage will be India’s Achilles Heel internally and externally, writes TamilNet political commentator in Colombo.
Full story >>

War ends but ethnic problem continues, witness tells LLRC

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 29 March 2011, 02:58 GMT]
"The stand taken by extremist Sinhala elements that there is no ethnic problem in the country cannot be accepted any more, said a senior Attorney-at-Law F.M. Ammerul Anzar Mowlana, the additional national propaganda secretary of the National Congress, while giving evidence at the hearings of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) held at the auditorium of the in Kalmunai Tamil Division DS Secretariat Sunday, sources attending the hearing said. LLRC Chairman Chitta Ranjan de Silva presided over the sittings.
Full story >>

SLA-tortured teacher dies in Jaffna hospital

[TamilNet, Monday, 28 March 2011, 11:25 GMT]
28-year-old Sampanthan Sakthitharan a male teacher at Chaavakachcheari Hindu College, who was severely tortured by the occupying Sri Lanka Army in Jaffna at Thirunelveali on 15 March and dumped on the side of the road three hours later fought for his life at Jafna Teaching Hospital for 10 days with serious injuries in his head and finally succumbed to his injuries Saturday at Jaffna Teaching Hospital.
Full story >>

300 Tamils, Muslims appeal to LLRC to locate missing relatives

[TamilNet, Sunday, 27 March 2011, 15:16 GMT]
The Lessons and Learnt Reconciliation Commissioner (LLRC) Sunday morning commenced its sittings at the auditorium of the Kalmunai (Tamil) Divisional Secretariat and recorded statements from over three hundred persons including Tamils and Muslims who have lost their children and spouses due to the arrest, abduction and killing by the Intelligence Unit of the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) and cadres of para military groups led by Karuna and Pilliayan, sources in Ampaa'rai said.
Full story >>

Ampaa'rai mother appeals to LLRC to locate son abducted by Karuna men

[TamilNet, Saturday, 26 March 2011, 11:08 GMT]
A widowed Tamil mother, Kasipillai Marakathamani, of Vinaayagapuram in Thirukoail Friday appealed to the Lessons and Learnt Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) to locate her only son who was forcibly taken over from her house three years ago by cadres of Karuna Para military Group. Since then the son has been missing and his whereabouts are not known. Marakathamani was giving evidence before the LLRC sittings Friday morning in the Ampaa'rai District Secretariat.
Full story >>

Democratic uprising in Tamil Nadu crucial to changes in the region

[TamilNet, Friday, 25 March 2011, 12:38 GMT]
If the so-called post 9/11 paradigm provided an opportunity for repressive forces to mobilise against various peoples in the world and if that worked against the liberation of Eezham Tamils, the recent uprising of peoples against establishments in North Africa and West Asia is a favourable trend the Eezham Tamils and the Tamils of Tamil Nadu have to carefully comprehend and make use of in bringing out changes in South Asia too. Progressive Sinhalese who see the need to recognise the nation of Eezham Tamils for a true reconciliation in the island should also join in. A democratic uprising in Tamil Nadu is crucial to changes in the entire region and that is a big hope for Eezham Tamils too. Tamil Nadu has the potentiality and the reasons for the uprising, writes TamilNet political commentator in Colombo.
Full story >>

ITAK local councilors in North, East to take oath in Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Friday, 25 March 2011, 12:36 GMT]
76 councilors elected to fifteen local bodies including two Urban Councils and ten Predesiya Sabas in the last local elections held in Northern and Eastern provinces on the Ilankai Tamil Arasu Katchchi (ITAK) ticket, and Chairmen and Vice Chairmen appointed to twelve local bodies captured by the ITAK would be taking oaths on March 31 Thursday morning at Trincomalee Town Hall, political sources in the East said.
Full story >>