Mu'l'livaaykkaal remembrance gains momentum amidst renewed harassments

[TamilNet, Saturday, 14 May 2016, 17:18 GMT]
Elected councillors of the Northern Provincial Council (NPC), former members of civic bodies, militant-turned political parties in the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) and the Tamil National Peoples' Front (TNPF) are engaged in organising memorial events in the country of Eezham Tamils amidst recently renewed threats and harassments against former Tamil fighters in the North and East. The SL military intelligence circles have been telling former members of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) that there will be consequences if they were seen paying tribute to fallen LTTE members. Not only the LTTE fighters, all the Tamils who wanted to be free and stood with the LTTE in Vanni while all the global Establishments were directly or indirectly assisting Colombo were all real Tamil Heroes, said NPC Councillors who are organising a series of memorial events and meetings in the North.
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War-affected, poverty-stricken Tamil villagers complain of neglect in housing assistance

[TamilNet, Monday, 09 May 2016, 23:35 GMT]
104 Eezham Tamil families, who have resettled in Isaimalaith-thaazhvu village, which is located 3 km southeast of Murungkan town along Mannaar - Mathavaachchi Road in Naanaaddaan division, complain that they are being systematically neglected in all the housing schemes reaching Mannaar district. The families, mostly dependent on animal farming or agriculture close to their temporary huts, live below the poverty line, and are among the poorest in Mannaar district. Their houses were either demolished or taken over by the occupying SL military and the notorious Special Task Force (STF) in February 1997 during the brutal military operation code named ‘Edibala’.
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Key Tamil organisations boycott Colombo's dialogue meet in Norway

[TamilNet, Thursday, 05 May 2016, 11:35 GMT]
The mainstream political and development related diaspora organisations of Eezham Tamils in Norway boycotted a so-called “high level” dialogue meeting organised by two NGOs funded by Norway on Wednesday. The Foreign Ministry of Norway has been advocating behind the scene to lock the Tamil organisations into the ‘dialogue’ meeting with the Netherland-based NGO operative Ram Manikkalingam, who is a close associate of former SL President Chandrika Kumaratunga Bandaranaike (CBK) and is an official member of SL President Maithiripala Sirisena's “Office for National Unity and Reconciliation”. At least 8 of the 12 invited organisations either boycotted or abstained from attending the meeting on Wednesday. Five of the boycotting organisations came out with a joint communiqué clarifying their position.
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Justice more important than motorbikes and houses: Journalists in Colombo

[TamilNet, Saturday, 30 April 2016, 15:25 GMT]
More than one hundred Tamil, Sinhala and Muslim journalists in Colombo organised a protest in front of the Fort Railway Station on Friday condemning the Sri Lankan State for not investigating the assassinations of popular journalist Sivaram Dharmeratnam alias Taraki, who was abducted on 28 April 2005 and found shot dead behind the SL Parliament on the following day. Sivaram's assassination took place during the regime of Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunge (CBK), who now heads the so-called ‘Office of the National Unity and Reconciliation’ while remaining tight lipped on the genocidal crimes committed under her rule. A Sinhala journalist described the protest as a big success demonstrating the continued solidarity among the sections of Tamil, Sinhala and Muslim journalists, who were behind the principled demand of Justice.
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SL Foreign Ministry instructs visiting foreign citizens to North to obtain ‘military visa’

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 19 April 2016, 23:42 GMT]
The officials of Colombo's Foreign Ministry have started to cite an updated ‘news report’ in the Sri Lankan Defence Ministry website, dated 03 March 2016, in instructing foreign citizens travelling to the five districts in North to obtain ‘prior approval’ from the genocidal military of ‘Sri Lanka’, a Tamil visitor from Europe engaged in providing humanitarian assistance has complained to rights activists in Colombo this week. The latest ‘development’ comes after increased reports of abduction-styled arrests that have been carried out by Colombo's military intelligence in North. The Eezham Tamil visitor, engaged in humanitarian work from abroad for a long time, was recently lured into ‘think’ as ‘Sri Lankan’ by the ‘reconciliation’ desk of the foreign ministry in the country of citizenship.
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Continued desecration of Tamil Heroes cemetery is ‘Good Governance’ for Sinhala State

[TamilNet, Monday, 04 April 2016, 23:25 GMT]
Occupying Sinhala military's 233 Brigade has been ploughing the grounds of the largest Tamil Eelam Heroes Cemetery in Batticaloa with the genocidal motive of deploying illegal Sinhala settlers to do cultivation in the grounds where more than 675 fallen Tamil fighters lay buried. The gruesome act has been committed for during the past 2 weeks despite repeated pleas from the Tamil civil sources to the government officials in Batticaloa district not to hurt the sentiments of Eezham Tamils. The present regime of Maithiripala Sirisena and Ranil Wickramasinghe, accompanied by former SL President Chandrika Kumaratunga, who are engaged in ‘Sinhala-Only’ determined ‘reconciliation’, have chosen to ignore the requests from the Tamil public, civil sources at the District Secretariat told TamilNet.
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Maithiripala accelerates structural genocide against Tamils in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 16 March 2016, 23:47 GMT]
Maithiriapala Sirisene, the president of genocidal Sri Lanka, who visited his native district of Polonnaruwa last week, has vowed to ‘develop’ the villages that are being Sinhalicised along the border of Batticaloa and Polonnaruwa through ‘Mahaweli System B’, which is being accelerated according to his latest instructions. Hailing from Polonnaruwa, Mr Sirisena has been implementing a long-term Sinhalicisiation agenda within the System B, which is the largest of Mahaweli ‘Development’ programme, consisting of 75,441 ha., including 27,179 ha of irrigable lands.
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Attacked Tamil students in Trinco campus under pressure not to talk to media

[TamilNet, Monday, 14 March 2016, 22:41 GMT]
The administration of Trincomalee Campus at the Eastern University has instructed the students not to talk to media. On Monday, the campus was temporarily shut down to avoid situation getting out of control. The administration has also appointed a three-member committee with the instruction not to bring out the racial motive behind the episode. The attacked students said they had complained for a long time about the hate crime tendency, but the university administration has ignored the early warnings. On Monday, the Sinhala students started to claim that the attack was in retaliation to ‘bullying behaviour’ from the Tamil students. The Tamil students from the Unit of Siddha Medicine have provided names of ten Sinhala students from the departments of Communication and Management to the Campus administration and the SL Police. No action has been taken against them, they said.
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Sirisena's Mahaweli Ministry continues demographic genocide in East

[TamilNet, Saturday, 16 January 2016, 22:13 GMT]
The UNP government in 1984 kicked off a genocidal project of settling Sinhalese in large numbers in the Tamil-speaking district of Batticaloa in East with the same agenda of Sinhaliciation that took place in Trincomalee district earlier. Eezham Tamils were chased out of their villages as more than ten thousand Sinhalese were almost moved overnight by the SL Ministry of ‘Mahaweli Development’ to occupy the key areas in Batticaloa coming under the so-called Left bank of the B System. The SL President Maithiripala Sirisena, who is also the SL Minister of ‘Mahaweli Development’, is now carrying out the same project in a sophisticated manner, Tamil civil officials in Batticaloa said. 30,400 Sinhalese and have been settled under the Mahaweli programme in the district, which is predominantly Tamil-speaking while only 1,281 Tamil-speaking Muslims and 34 Tamils have been given lands, they said.
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Coerced confessions determine Tamil prisoners' fate

[TamilNet, Friday, 15 January 2016, 19:57 GMT]
While rights groups highlight the continued torture and rapes of Tamils even after Sri Lanka's President Sirisena came to power, the 217 political prisoners languishing in Sri Lanka's high security jails expose another dark side of Sri Lanka's failed criminal justice system. The predicament of Valayuthan Varatharajan from Karava'nai South, Karaveddi who had been in remand for nearly 16 years in the New Magazine Prison, and was hurriedly given a sentence for "conspiring to carry out suicide attack" on the then President Kumaratunge, a verdict given three days before Sri Lanka resolution was passed in the UN on the 25th of September 2015, highlights Sri Lanka's judicial bankruptcy, legal sources in Colombo said. The main evidence the prosecution was able to assemble against Varatharajan was a coerced confession signed in Sinhala language by the defendant, according to these sources.
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‘Home-made’ solution not possible, NPC councillor calls for protest on Wednesday

[TamilNet, Monday, 11 January 2016, 23:05 GMT]
Northern Provincial Councillor M.K. Shivajilingam on Monday urged the public to attend a protest in Jaffna on Wednesday expressing their opposition to the deceptive politics being staged by the Colombo regime, particularly its leaders Maithiripala Sirisena and Ranil Wickramasinghe, who are scheduled to visit Jaffna in just another PR stunt on Friday, when Tamils across the globe mark the secular festival of Thaip-Pongkal. Mr Shivajingam said there has been no progress at all on five important fronts: release of 200 political prisoners, establishing the whereabouts of 20,000 missing persons, de-militarisation and releasing lands seized by the occupying military in the North and East, internationally mediated negotiations to resolve the national question and investigations on crimes against international law including the genocide.
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Colombo SLT extends TamilNet censorship to south of the island

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 05 January 2016, 00:03 GMT]
The Colombo regime of Maithiripala Sirisena (SLFP) and Ranil Wickramsinghe (UNP) have once again proved that they are not different from the previous regime of Rajapaksa in suppressing access to tamilnet.com for the vast majority of Internet users in the island who connect through ADSL broadband provided by ‘Sri Lanka’ Telecom PLC (SLT). The main stakeholder of the SLT ownership is the Government of ‘Sri Lanka’. The other dominant shareholder of the SLT is Egypt-based Global Telecommunication Holdings. The SLT has been continuously blocking access to TamilNet in the North and East despite the claim by the Maithiripala regime last January that the Government of ‘Sri Lanka’ would not be practicing Internet censorship anymore as it was during the Rajapaksa regime. Ironically, the marketing slogan of the SLT is: ‘One Country. One Voice.’
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Another Tamil political prisoner goes on hunger-strike at New Magazine Prison

[TamilNet, Thursday, 10 December 2015, 17:21 GMT]
32-year-old Komahan Murugiah, a former member of Jaffna Municipal Council, who has been detained in Colombo since July 2010 after being accused of attempting to assassinate Douglas Devananda, a former SL Minister and the leader of the EPDP outfit. The SL 'Terrorist' Investigation Division (TID) had arrested Mr Murugiah during the Rajapaksa regime and produced two cases, one in Vavuniyaa and another in Colombo. The High Court in Vavuniyaa had dismissed his case as his ‘confession’ had been obtained under torture. Mr Douglas Devananda has declined to witness against Mr Murugiah and openly urged for the release of the prisoner. However, the SL TID and SL Attorney General's Department have been trying to file a third case against Murugiah with the intention of keeping him detained indefinitely, informed legal sources told TamilNet on Thursday.
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Tamil political prisoner, subjected to indefinite detention, goes on fast-unto-death

[TamilNet, Monday, 07 December 2015, 22:10 GMT]
36-year-old political prisoner Jeneevan Sivarasa, who has been indefinitely detained without trial for 9 years, on Monday launched fast-unto-death in Jaffna Prison. The SL military had detained Jeneevan Sivarasa, who hails from Achchuveali in Jaffna, in 2006 while he was on his way to Polonnaruwa from Batticaloa. An Assistant Superintendent of Police, Senakumara Singhe, who had fabricated a false confession from Jeneevan, has been systematically avoiding presenting himself at every hearing scheduled during the past 6 years at the High Court in Jaffna. Each time, the Tamil prisoner was taken to Jaffna from Colombo and his case was being postponed indefinitely. There are three cases framed against Mr Sivarasa and two of these were fabricated cases of conspiracy to assassinate Maithiripala Sirisena, who is the incumbent SL President.
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Premachandran releases photos of SL military-run torture chamber in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 01 December 2015, 23:04 GMT]
Former Tamil Parliamentarian Suresh Premachandran has released photos taken by him from a former torture chamber operated by the occupying Sri Lankan military in Jaffna to media on Tuesday. The photos show blood-stained walls of a house used as torture cell and the roof of the abandoned house netted inside with barbed-wire. The photos were taken after the occupying Sri Lankan military relocated one of its most dreaded camps, known as 52nd Brigade Head Quarters, from Vara'ni to Kodikaamam in Thenmaraadchi. Describing the photographic traces of the former torture chamber in Vara'ni, Mr Premachandran told TamilNet that he was releasing the photos after the visiting UN working group on enforced disappearances had confirmed his earlier allegations on the existence of a similar torture chamber at Trincomalee Naval base in the East.
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Madigea

[TamilNet, Sunday, 15 November 2015, 07:29 GMT]
The customs (of the times of Kandyan Kingdom)
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Jaffna lawyers tell SL Minister to prove political will in releasing Tamil prisoners

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 03 November 2015, 23:20 GMT]
Lawyers from Jaffna district, who met the SL Justice Minister Mr Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe in Jaffna on Tuesday urged the Colombo government to release all the Tamil political prisoners rotting in the jails without looking at their cases through criminal or legal procedures. The SL minister was visiting Jaffna to stage a deceptive campaign claiming that the SL Attorney General was prepared to grant bail to a considerable number of prisoners and that all the cases of the persons detained by the notorious ‘Terrorist Investigation Department’ (TID) have been transferred to the office of the SL Attorney General.
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Independent media watchdogs urged to visit Tamil homeland

[TamilNet, Sunday, 01 November 2015, 21:17 GMT]
International media watch dogs, not funded by State actors or Corporates, are urged to visit Northern and Eastern Provinces in the island and record the failure of domestic investigation mechanisms of the present regime in Colombo in bringing justice to the killings, enforced disappearances and harassments that prevailed and continue to prevail against independent journalists in the occupied country of Eezham Tamils. Those who ordered the assassinations of leading reporters and those who took part in the executions are still being operated by the occupying SL military in Jaffna and other places, independent Tamil journalists who are not exposed to funded agendas in the North and East told TamilNet.
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Two more human skeletons exhumed from Kumaratunga's killings fields in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Friday, 23 October 2015, 20:29 GMT]
The organization representing the families of forced disappeared in Jaffna has demanded on Friday credible and independent forensic analysis to be conducted without further delay on recently exhumed skeletons from Mu'l'li at Ariyaalai East, located near the genocidal killing fields of Chemma'ni. Skeletons of two females, one of them believed to be a schoolgirl allegedly raped and killed by the occupying SL military, have been recently exhumed after sand scoopers discovered the remains. The SL military had vacated from Mu'l'li two years ago after keeping the area as a ‘High Security Zone’ since 1996. Around 800 Tamil youth were forcefully disappeared between 1996 and 1999 in Jaffna peninsula under Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga's (CBK) rule.
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Hindutva-Buddhist ‘pincer mechanism’ to compete hybrid mechanism

[TamilNet, Friday, 18 September 2015, 17:52 GMT]
While Tamils are busy in comprehending and extricating themselves from the sophisticated web of ‘hybrid mechanism’ cast on them by Washington and Washington-led UN, New Delhi in its own crude way plans a bilateral ‘pincer mechanism’ along with Colombo, as could be seen from Ranil’s visit to New Delhi. Even though the imperialist aims are different, both ‘mechanisms’ follow the same policy of denying justice to the national question of Eezham Tamils to the genocidal satisfaction of the Sinhala-Buddhist State; the same strategy of absolving Colombo as well as themselves, and the same tactics of wooing Colombo in which only the shades vary, commented Tamil activists for alternative politics in the island.
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