Former Journalist abducted in Colombo

[TamilNet, Sunday, 22 June 2008, 09:15 GMT]
A former reporter of Colombo Tamil daily Thinakkural, Thiruchelvam Thirukumaran, currently an officer attached to the Sri Lankan Ministry of Environment, was abducted from his house at Dehiwala by a group of men who arrived in a white colour van around 8:45 p.m. Saturday, according to a complaint lodged by his parents with the Dehiwala Police Sunday. The abductors were clad in police uniform.
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Sampanthan regrets neglected relationship

[TamilNet, Saturday, 21 June 2008, 15:23 GMT]
Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentary group leader R. Sampanthan, who on Saturday met the visiting Indian top officials at India House in Colombo, told the delegation that "Tamils believed all these years that they were the natural allies of India, but it is not so today." Even the human rights violations against Tamils, abductions and genocide are largely ignored by India.
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UNP dissidents withdraw their case against Wickremasinghe

[TamilNet, Saturday, 21 June 2008, 01:30 GMT]
Eleven dissident parliamentarians of the main opposition United National Party (UNP) and have been functioning as UNP Democratic Wing in the parliament holding ministerial posts in the ruling United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) Friday withdrew their petitions filed against Ranil Wickremasinghe and Tissa Attanayake, president and general secretary of the UNP from taking steps to expel them from the proper UNP, legal sources said.
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JVP dissident parliamentarian says she is safe

[TamilNet, Friday, 20 June 2008, 11:23 GMT]
Anjana Umma, the dissident Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) parliamentarian Friday around 10:50 a.m. telephoned the Officer-in-Charge of the Mirigama Police and said she is safe. She contacted the police by telephone in response to the complaint made by her husband Thursday night that he had not heard about his wife since she left to parliament on June 16 with two her parliamentary colleagues.
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Top Indian delegates visit Colombo

[TamilNet, Friday, 20 June 2008, 08:04 GMT]
India's Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon, National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan and India's Defence Secretary Vijay Singh have arrived in Colombo Friday morning, informed sources said.
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Family man abducted in Colombo

[TamilNet, Friday, 20 June 2008, 04:01 GMT]
Two men in police uniform and three armed men in civil clothes arriving in a police jeep and a white van at the house of a family man Saturday early morning in Maddakku’li in Mukaththuvaaram police division in Colombo took him away in the van, according to the complaint made to Mukaththuvaaram police station and Human Rights Commission, by his family members.
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'Tamils seek liberation, not just an end to human rights abuses' - paper

[TamilNet, Friday, 20 June 2008, 02:21 GMT]
By reducing the Sri Lankan state’s multi-faceted repression of the Tamils to simply a problem of ‘human rights abuses’, the international community is avoiding the central question of Tamil self-determination and, through the logic of ‘reform’, seeking to legitimize its efforts to strengthen the Sri Lankan state, the Tamil Guardian newspaper argued this week. “For the Tamils, the atrocities inflicted on them by the Sri Lankan security forces are a symptom, an indicator of the racist logic of the Sinhala-dominated state; for the international community, they are the problem itself i.e. end the abuses and thus solve the crisis,” the paper’s editorial said.
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Tamil physical instructor abducted in Colombo

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 18 June 2008, 19:03 GMT]
Unidentified armed persons Monday night abducted a Tamil youth, native of Ki'linochchi, in Kotahena (Koddaagncheanai) in Colombo, according to complaints lodged with the police by his relatives Wednesday. The victim, Selliah Sivasubramaniam, 27, had been working in a physical training center, located along George.R.De Silva Mawatte in Kotahena, as an instructor.
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14 awarded Diploma in Journalism at Jaffna University

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 18 June 2008, 10:19 GMT]
“The responsibility of guiding the society on a just and proper path rests with the media,” Vice-chancellor of Jaffna University, Prof. N. Shanmugalingan, Guest of Honour, said in the convocation ceremony held Wednesday at Jaffna University, Media Resource and Training Centre (MRTC). Fourteen students, including a woman, were awarded Diploma in Journalism at the ceremony. “Though the journalists passing out today have to work in a dangerous security climate, I fervently hope they will fulfill their responsibility to the society, Prof. P. Balasuntharampillai, the head of MRTC and former Vice-chancellor of Jaffna University, said in his speech.
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Seven leaders including G.G.Ponnambalam honored in SL parliament

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 18 June 2008, 04:29 GMT]
Seven political leaders, C.W.W.Kannangara, A.E.Goonesinghe, Dr.S.A.Wickremasinghe, G.G.Ponnambalam, Dr.N.M.Perera, Phillip Gunawardene and Alhaj T.B.Jayah were honored for their services to Sri Lanka, Tuesday in Sri Lanka's parliament. Their photographs were unveiled Tuesday morning in the parliament as a mark of respect in an event presided by Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake, parliamentary sources said.
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UK to close down Defense Section in Colombo office

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 17 June 2008, 10:17 GMT]
The Defense Section of the British High Commission in Colombo is to be closed down soon. The resident Defense Advisor will be removed from Colombo, media reports said quoting a spokesman of the British High Commission in Colombo.
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UNP to form election alliance

[TamilNet, Sunday, 15 June 2008, 18:59 GMT]
The leadership of the main opposition United National Party (UNP) has been holding talks with leaders of the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC), Western Peoples Front (WPF), and the splinter group of the Sri Lanka Freedom party (SLFP) on forming an alliance to contest the elections to the Sabragamuwa Provincial Council (SPC) and North central Provincial Council (NCPC), political sources in Colombo said.
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40 Tamil civilians arrested in Polonnaruwa, Chilaw

[TamilNet, Sunday, 15 June 2008, 18:48 GMT]
Forty civilians, most of them are Tamils were taken into custody in two separate cordon and search operations conducted by the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) and police in Polonnaruwa and Chilaw police divisions. All are being detained in police stations and being interrogated by the Terrorist Intelligence Division (TID).
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2 police constables shot dead in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Sunday, 15 June 2008, 17:15 GMT]
Two police constables were shot dead by unidentified men at Kalladi in Batticaloa Sunday around 3.20 pm, media sources in Colombo said.
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Abductions have blessings of Colombo- Ganeson

[TamilNet, Sunday, 15 June 2008, 00:01 GMT]
Responding to the recent press communiqué released by the Presidential secretariat, Mano Ganeshan MP, the leader of Western Province People Front (WPPF) and Convenor of Civil Monitoring Commission on Extra judicial killings and Disappearances state, in a press release issued Friday said: "It is good to note that the President is concerned of this situation but we did not create this situation. In fact this was created due the abductions created with the blessings of this Government."
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Weerawanse to meet Rajapakse

[TamilNet, Saturday, 14 June 2008, 17:37 GMT]
Parliamentarian Wimal Weerawanse, leader of the Janatha Nidahas Peramuna (JNP), a splinter group of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) is scheduled to meet Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapakse on Monday. This would be the first official meeting between the Wimal Weerawanse and Mahinda Rajapakse after the split in the JVP, political sources said.
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Tissainayagam in wrongful custody, Jasikaran tortured, allege counsels

[TamilNet, Friday, 13 June 2008, 19:07 GMT]
Senior Tamil journalist and Sunday Times columnist, J.S Tissainayagam, under detention since his arrest on March 6, was produced Friday before the chief magistrate N. Hettiarachchi 98 days into his detention, legal sources in Colombo said. The Terrorism Investigation Division (TID) of Sri Lanka's Defense Ministry objected to Tissainayagam and other detainees from being moved to the Fiscal Custody according to regulation 21 (2) of the emergency regulations of 2005.
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Jaffna youth abducted in Colombo

[TamilNet, Thursday, 12 June 2008, 17:47 GMT]
Unidentified armed men in a white van arriving at a private lodge in Colombo Wednesday night called by name a youth from Jaffna staying there and forcibly abducted him, according to the complaint made by his mother with the Human Rights Commission (HRC) Jaffna office, Thursday. The number of persons from Jaffna peninsula being abducted in Colombo has escalated recently, HRC Jaffna office sources said.
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3 Tamils abducted, youth reported missing in Colombo

[TamilNet, Thursday, 12 June 2008, 13:40 GMT]
Unidentified armed men in civil clothes abducted Wednesday around 10:30 p.m. the manager of a lodge in Kotahena while a family man was abducted the same night by a gang of armed men arriving at his house in Kotahena. In the third abduction, three men in police uniform and one in Sri Lanka Army (SLA) uniform abducted Monday an elderly man from his house in Wattala, sources in Colombo said. Meanwhile, a Tamil youth from Kotahena is reported missing from his home since Tuesday, according to the complaint made by his relatives to Kottahena police.
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CPA: Trincomalee HSZ violates international law

[TamilNet, Thursday, 12 June 2008, 01:00 GMT]
Asserting that "sustainable solutions are required to reduce tension, discrimination and deprivation of communities," the Center for Policy Alternatives (CPA), a Colombo-based political, humanitarian think-tank, in a report on the current status of issues related to land in Trincomalee, said that, "[u]nfortunately, the various policies adopted by the authorities have had the opposite effect." Noting that 7,338 people will lose their homes due the 'reduced' High Security Zone (HSZ), the report said, "a serious review needs to be taken of the necessity of incorporating such a large extent of land into the HSZ."
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