World must rein in Sri Lankan state – TNA

[TamilNet, Saturday, 22 September 2007, 11:13 GMT]
Protesting that the Sri Lankan government had discarded negotiating a settlement to the island’s ethnic conflict, the Tamil National Alliance (TNA)urged the international community to take a principled stand on the Tamil people’s right to self determination. Outlining the humanitarian and human rights crisis that has emerged in the wake of Colombo’s military project, the TNA also argued: “the Sri Lankan State will not conform to international norms or standards. It is only by the International Community … taking meaningful steps, can the Sri Lankan State be made to realize that it cannot continue with the present disastrous trend.”
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Kumaratunge to visit New York

[TamilNet, Saturday, 22 September 2007, 05:19 GMT]
Ms Chandrika Kumaratunge, former President of Sri Lanka, is scheduled to leave for New York Tuesday morning at the invitation of Bill Clinton Foundation. Her US visit coincides with President Mahinda Rajapakse trip to New York. Ms Chandrika Kumaratunge held the Executive Presidency post from 1994 till 2005, for two terms.
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Colombo Tamil residents complain of Police harassment

[TamilNet, Friday, 21 September 2007, 11:28 GMT]
Tamil residents are being harassed in Colombo suburbs of Wattala, Kotahena, Modera, and Wellawatte when they go to police stations to register as instructed by the Defence Ministry. Although instructions from the Defence Ministry do not require residents to produce photographs, the Police officials are demanding photographs, civil society sources said.
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Killinochchi ACLG files FR petition in Supreme Court

[TamilNet, Thursday, 20 September 2007, 11:17 GMT]
Mr.Alvapillai Kandiah Balasubramaniam, Assistant Commissioner of Local Government (ACLG) in Killinochchi district, arrested and kept in remand since June 26 under the Emergency Regulations, Wednesday filed fundamental rights petition in the Supreme Court seeking his release. He has cited Borella Police Officer-in-Charge, Inspector General of Police, Defence Ministry Secretary, Commissioner General of Prisons and Attorney General as respondents in his petition, legal sources said.
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LTTE's patience intentional - Thamilchelvan

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 19 September 2007, 08:18 GMT]
"Without caring for International policies and passive requests, the Government of Sri Lanka is continuing its genocidal war against the Tamil people. The concerns raised by the International Community have failed to make any dent on the ethnic cleansing by Colombo government which has proved itself a terrorist-state. Some International governments, without understanding realities, give aid to the deceitful purposes of the Sinhala government, which will only escalate the island's ethnic conflict to hitherto unseen heights," said LTTE's Political Head S.P. Thamilchelvan in an exclusive interview to TamilNet on Wednesday.
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Basil Rajapakse appointed National List MP

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 18 September 2007, 18:59 GMT]
Basil Rajapakse, senior advisor and brother of Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapakse is to be sworn in as National List parliamentarian when the parliament meets on Wednesday, parliamentary sources in Colombo said. His name has been forwarded to the Commissioner of Elections by the General Secretary of the ruling United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) Susil Premajayanth Tuesday to fill the vacancy created with the death of Mr.Anwer Ismail, a minister in the present government last week.
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Naziism, apartheid alive in Sri Lanka- US editorial

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 18 September 2007, 14:52 GMT]
Comparing the eviction of more than 500 Tamils from Colombo to Naziism and apartheid, and "one part of a long genocidal streak," an editorial that appeared in Cincinnati Enquirer's Tuesday edition, said that inaction on allowing US government's funding the Sri Lankan military, will imply not just neutrality, but complicity.
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Trincomalee medical officers suspend boycott

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 18 September 2007, 10:56 GMT]
The boycott by medical officers and health workers in the Trincomalee general hospital Tuesday morning demanding that they should be provided with security from armed groups was withdrawn later in the day following an assurance given by the Trincomalee police, Dr.Mudditha Palliaguruge, North-East Co-ordinator of the Government Medical Officers Union (GMOA) said in Colombo.
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Death threats escalate in Jaffna, doctors flee extortion

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 18 September 2007, 10:25 GMT]
Death threats from Sri Lanka Army (SLA) backed armed Tamil paramilitary groups, have forced many doctors and medical specialists in Jaffna to complain to Human Rights Commission (HRC) and to leave the peninsula fearing death and abduction of their children and family members while more of them are contemplating flight from the peninsula, civil society sources in Jaffna said. Meanwhile, an editor of the Jaffna edition of a Colombo based daily has been threatened to death. Paramilitary personnel are targeting the Tamil intellectuals in Jaffna with extortion, abduction and death threats.
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Sign of the times in Tamil Nadu

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 18 September 2007, 00:40 GMT]
Veteran Tamil Nadu activist Pazha Nedumaran’s attempted crossing of the Palk Straits in a bid to deliver emergency relief to Sri Lanka’s Tamils was thwarted last week when he and hundreds of volunteers were arrested. Whilst the attempted crossing and its ‘failure’ has been dismissed, especially in Sri Lanka’s south, as a stunt by mavericks on the fringe of Tamil Nadu’s politics, the event has both highlighted and boosted resurgent support in the south Indian state for the Sri Lankan Tamils’ cause.
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Abducted youth in Ragama left blindfolded in Dambulla

[TamilNet, Monday, 17 September 2007, 10:41 GMT]
Kanthasamy Kamaladas, 29, abducted by unidentified persons on Wednesday morning at Ragama railway station appeared at the Ragama police station Monday morning, sources in Colombo said. Kamaladas said he was dropped by the abductors in a jungle area in Dambulla in Kandy district on Sunday night blind-folded, but managed to obtain help from a lorry driver to travel back to Ragama.
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Tamil youth reported missing in Colombo

[TamilNet, Monday, 17 September 2007, 10:37 GMT]
A Tamil youth from Old Moor Street in Colombo has been reported missing after he left home for work on Tuesday, September 11, his relatives in Colombo said. The person has been identified as S.Nishanthan, 25, is a mason, and a father of one child.


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46 civilians arrested in Dehiwala, Gampaha

[TamilNet, Sunday, 16 September 2007, 11:15 GMT]
Seventeen civilians, majority of them Tamils, were arrested in a combined cordon and search operation conducted by the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) and police in Dehiwala in Colombo district from Saturday night to Sunday dawn, sources in Colombo said. Police said the suspects were taken into custody on receipt of information that movement of some strangers in the area had been noted.


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UN human rights officials to visit Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Sunday, 16 September 2007, 03:24 GMT]
Three top Human Rights officials are expected to visit Sri Lanka in the first two weeks of October and December this year to look into human rights issues in Sri Lanka. UNP Special Rapporteaur against Torture, Manfred Nowak, will be in Colombo from October 1 to 8 and High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour from October 8 to13. Special Representative of the UN Secretary General on Human Rights of Internally Displaced Peoples (IDPs), Walter Kaelin, is to visit from December 13 to 21.


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Committment to International Law absent in Colombo's media policy- CPA

[TamilNet, Friday, 14 September 2007, 11:36 GMT]
Commenting that the proposed National Media Policy of the Sri Lanka Government fails to make key commitments which are recognised as international standards of law and practice and which have long been demanded by civil society in Sri Lanka, ARTICLE 19 and the Centre for Policy Alternatives urged the government to "either to drop entirely the idea of developing a media policy or to restart the process from the beginning through a broad consultation with interested stakeholders to determine what such a policy should contain."
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Fisheries Ministry urged to pay compensation to Jaffna Fishermen

[TamilNet, Friday, 14 September 2007, 11:20 GMT]
A demonstration was held in Colombo Wednesday evening in front of the office of the Sri Lankan Fisheries Ministry urging the government to pay a sum of Rupees Five Thousand as monthly relief to fishermen of Jaffna district who have lost their livelihood as they have been prevented from fishing due to security situation. The National Fishermen Co-ordination Forum (NFCF) organized the protest, sources said.


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Bishop Malcolm Ranjith refutes press reports over his meeting with Rajapaksa

[TamilNet, Friday, 14 September 2007, 01:26 GMT]
Bishop Rt. Rev. Dr. Malcom, the secretary of the Congregation of Divine Worship of the Vatican, who visited Vanni Thursday to meet Liberation Tigers Political Head S.P. Thamilchelvan, has refuted press reports in Colombo which said that the Bishop had appreciated the Sri Lankan president for his measures to "wipe out terrorism," when he met the SL president, Mahinda Rajapaksa, Monday. "I never said I appreciated anything connected with the war. I did not go for the meeting with the President to say such things," Bishop Malcolm dismissed the media reports in Colombo. "I don't appreciate war mongering or any violence," he futher told the reporters in Ki'linochchi.
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Tamil civilian abducted at Ragama near Colombo

[TamilNet, Thursday, 13 September 2007, 22:02 GMT]
A middle aged Tamil civilian, traveling with his mother from Trincomalee, on the Colombo bound train was abducted by unknown men at Ragama Railway station, 13 km northeast of Colombo, Wednesday early morning.
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12 Tamil detainees released from Boosa camp

[TamilNet, Thursday, 13 September 2007, 17:49 GMT]
Twelve Tamil detainees, six from Mannaar and the other six from Wattala area in Colombo district, were released from Boosa detention camp Wednesday, legal sources in Colombo said. The said detainees were taken into custody several months earlier and sent to Boosa detention camp under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA).
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U.S. Air Force medics collaborate with Sri Lankan forces in healing "liberated" East

[TamilNet, Thursday, 13 September 2007, 10:38 GMT]
In a press release issued on Thursday, the U.S. Embassy in Colombo said a nine-member United States Air Force (USAF) medics have completed a medical/dental mission in Kappalthu'rai, Eachchilampattu and Vaakarai in "recently-liberated eastern region of Sri Lanka," working alongside "colleagues" in the Sri Lankan armed forces.
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