Missing Tamil journalist: octogenarian parents urge international investigation

[TamilNet, Sunday, 05 April 2015, 23:09 GMT]
Eight years have passed since 37-year-old Tamil journalist Subramaniam Ramachandran was arrested by the occupying Sinhala military at Kalikai Junction in Vadamaraadchi, Jaffna. One month after the SL military ‘abduction’, France-based media watchdog, Reporters sans frontières (RSF) stated in March 2007 that it was in a position to affirm that the Sri Lankan military participated in the arrest of journalist Mr Ramachandran, who was the Vadamaraadchi regional correspondent for newspapers Valampuri and Yaazh Thinakkural. His 85-year-old father and 83-year-old mother are still languishing without knowing what had happened to their son. Ramachandran's nine and twelve-year-old children have been expecting the return of their father for 8 years, the aged grandparents said in a video interview to TamilNet urging global attention on the plight of their missing son.
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Premachandran challenges Colombo on ‘Gota’ detention camp in Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 17 March 2015, 08:42 GMT]
Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Parliamentarian Suresh Premachandran on Monday said he was in possession of evidences to prove that there existed a notorious detention camp at the Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) base in Trincomalee with more than 700 Tamil detainees and 35 families. “We can provide such evidences only if the witnesses could be protected,” Mr Premachandran said. After the TNA MP had raised the issue in the Sri Lankan Parliament in February, the new regime in Colombo promised to come up with answers. Now, the SL Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe (UNP) has responded citing the Commander of the Sri Lanka Navy as saying that there was no such detention camp. The Sri Lankan Justice Minister Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe (UNP) has also gone on record denying the accusation of the so-called Gotabhaya camp.
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9th Anniversary of STF killing of Trincomalee students

[TamilNet, Friday, 02 January 2015, 00:01 GMT]
Dr Kasippillai Manoharan and four other families will be commemorating the nineth anniversary of the murder of their sons extra-judicially executed by the Special Task force (STF) of the Sri Lanka Government on the 2nd January 2006. The high school students, all then nearly 20-years old, were spending an afternoon at a seafront in Trincomalee when the allegedly planned crime took place. Dr Manoharan told TamilNet that the STF officers Kapila Jayasekera and Vas Perera, part of the STF contingent sent to Trincomalee on the orders of the Defence Secretary and President's sibling, Gothabaya Rajapakse, and Udawatte Weerakody, a naval officer, were the key players in the planning and execution of the murders.
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Gotabhaya monitors Devananda's allegiance to Kumaratunga

[TamilNet, Thursday, 01 January 2015, 11:09 GMT]
While welcoming the incumbent SL President Mahinda Rajapaksa to North and challenging the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) in District Development Committee meetings with a pro-Colombo stance, SL minister and EPDP paramilitary leader Douglas Devananda, has also assured his personal allegiance to former SL President Chandrika Kumaratunga, informed sources in Jaffna told TamilNet. Sri Lankan military intelligence operatives under the direct command of SL presidential sibling Gotabhaya Rajapaksa have been questioning the close associates of Mr Devananda for his lack of interest in putting up Rajapaksa posters ahead of Rajapaksa's scheduled visit to Jaffna.
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Ex-LTTE members forced to vote for Rajapaksa at postal voting in Vanni

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 24 December 2014, 21:17 GMT]
The occupying military of genocidal Sri Lanka has forced around 4,000 former members of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), who are under the captivity of the so-called Civil Security Division (CSD) in Vanni, to vote for the incumbent SL president Mahinda Rajapaksa through postal voting, which concluded on Wednesday. In the meantime, a special unit of SL military personnel, led by the officers handpicked by the SL presidential sibling and Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, has been monitoring the rank and file of the SL military stationed in the North. A section of the Sinhala soldiers, who have been advocating against the re-election of Mahinda Rajapaksa have been subjected to investigations by this special unit, informed sources told TamilNet.
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SL Court to hear mother's challenge on military seizure of land

[TamilNet, Friday, 12 December 2014, 23:01 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lanka Army (SLA) that had moved into the lands of an old mother, Mrs Maheswary Thambirasa at Mirusuvil in Thenmaraadchi, Jaffna, had relocated the notorious 52-2 Division Headquarters of the SLA, which was earlier situated in Vara'ni into the new locality situated along the A9 road. SL presidential sibling and SL Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa opened declared the 52 Division HQ on January 08. Later, the SL military wanted to encroach further lands and the mother was protesting against the illegal seizure. Now, the case has been accepted for hearing at the Court of Appeal in Colombo, news sources in Jaffna said.
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Colombo threatens TNA civic members to crossover to UPFA

[TamilNet, Monday, 01 December 2014, 22:39 GMT]
The intelligence and political operatives who operate under the direct command of SL presidential siblings Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, the SL defence secretary and Basil Rajapaksa, the economic minister have been trying to woo grassroots Tamil members of the civic bodies in the North and East to the side of the ruling UPFA in the South. US-trained SL military commander in Jaffna, Major General Udaya Perera, who has been transferred to Colombo and promoted to the rank of Director General General Staff at the Office of the Chief of Defence Staff is attempting to woo TNA urban Council chairpersons and deputy chairpersons in North to the side of the UPFA through Colombo-based Tamil operatives, informed sources in Jaffna said.
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Colombo sniffs at emails being sent to OISL from the island

[TamilNet, Thursday, 30 October 2014, 15:04 GMT]
Intelligence officers attached to the Sri Lankan Defence Ministry have given secret instructions to Internet providers in Colombo to covertly scan the emails addressed to OHCHR Investigations on Sri Lanka (OISL), a reliable source in Colombo told TamilNet on Thursday. The intelligence officers have deployed simple network packet sniffing techniques to make copies of the messages that are addressed to the OISL. A lot of messages are also being discarded, while some are allowed to proceed in order to avoid provocation, the source further said. To ensure that their messages have reached the intended destination, the people who have made submissions should request acknowledgement from the OISL, an activist who got a bounced message told TamilNet.
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Waging struggle with self-respect amidst Delhi-Colombo engineering

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 28 October 2014, 21:00 GMT]
Earlier this month, re-inaugurating Colombo’s railway line to the occupied North, Mahinda Rajapaksa and the genocide line’s mastermind New Delhi, staged a ‘development’ show in Jaffna. On the same occasion, Rajapaksa also unveiled Colombo’s plans on converting the Nedun-theevu (Delft) Island off Jaffna and close to Tamil Nadu in the Palk Bay, into a Sinhala-Buddhist colony and military-commercial centre. While a leaked letter of the NPC chief minister Wigneswaran was harping on the functional unworkability of the NPC and the question of funds as well as the right over land in the province, more importance should be given to directly addressing and openly denouncing the fundamental policy line and master strategies of New Delhi, commented Tamil activists for alternative politics.
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Genocidal Sri Lanka bans ‘foreigners’ visiting occupied Tamil Eelam

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 15 October 2014, 17:26 GMT]
Colombo has banned ‘foreigners’ from visiting the island’s former war zone without permission to prevent ‘negative interventions’, media reports said on Wednesday, citing a statement of Colombo’s defence ministry run by SL presidential sibling Gotabhaya Rajapaksa. The move primarily targets the Eezham Tamil diaspora having the citizenship of various countries of the West and it equally targets the interaction of Eezham Tamils in the island. It is a master strategy of international imperialist dimensions to keep the genocide-facing Eezham Tamils shackled and submissive. While the Eezham Tamils in India can’t travel outside as they are kept as ‘refugees’ for decades, the target is now the free diaspora in the West, Tamil activists for alternative politics said.
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Rajapaksa deception in North aims at elections

[TamilNet, Monday, 13 October 2014, 23:22 GMT]
The elected representatives of Tamil National Alliance in the North fully boycotted the ceremonial events staged by the visiting SL President Mahinda Rajapaksa in Vanni and Jaffna on Sunday and Monday claiming that the meetings “do not appear to be in furtherance of a legitimate objective, and are not transparent nor collaborative.” While large numbers of SL soldiers were deployed on the streets of Jaffna subjecting the public with security checks, EPDP paramilitary operatives and a section of occupying SL military soldiers were coercing public sector workers, teachers, students together with the people deceived with false promises of livelihood assistance to attend the meetings.
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Colombo to seize more lands for militarisation of North

[TamilNet, Saturday, 20 September 2014, 22:43 GMT]
1,300 acres of lands are to be surveyed and seized by the SL military in Jaffna peninsula in the coming days, informed sources told TamilNet on Saturday. The lands belonging to Tamil people are to be seized in Maathakal, Achchuveali, Chavakachcheari, Nu’naavil and Thikkam. The SL military has already harassed the fishermen at Cheanthaan-ku’lam in Maathakal to vacate from their jetty and relocate their fishing tools as the land was to be surveyed, gazetted and seized for military expansion. On Friday, Tamil National Alliance (TNA) politicians, civic council members and Valikaamam North uprooted people’s organisation protested against an attempt to survey the lands in Maathakal. In the meantime, hundreds of acres of lands are being seized without any procedures in the Vanni mainland, Tamil activists in Mullaiththeevu said.
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SL TID in Jaffna terrorises Tamil Catholic priests who served in Vanni

[TamilNet, Saturday, 06 September 2014, 10:02 GMT]
Sri Lankan ‘Terrorist Investigation Department’, which receives direct instructions from SL presidential sibling and Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, in recent days has been monitoring, intimidating and ‘interrogating’ Eezham Tamil Catholic priests, who have been with their people in Vanni during and before the genocidal onslaught on Vanni. One of the six priests, who were detained in military-controlled barbed-wire camps in Menik Farm in 2009, Fr. A. Anton Stephen, was questioned by the TID officers at the Bishop’s House as the TID of the occupying Colombo was speculating that he is one of the key witnesses submitting an eyewitness account to the three member OHCHR investigation on Sri Lanka (OISL) panel tasked to produce a report on the investigation process in Sri Lanka after collecting direct reports from individuals, organisations and governments.
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STF deployed to muzzle protests against environmental genocide in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Friday, 29 August 2014, 07:01 GMT]
Hundreds of commandos from the occupying Special Task Force (STF), a full-fledged military outfit under the SL Police that has committed genocidal massacres against Eezham Tamils in the East, have been deployed in Vadamaraadchi East in Jaffna to muzzle renewed protests from Tamil villagers against the environment-destroying sand-scooping that is being carried out by Colombo-backed EPDP paramilitary's Maheswary Foundation and Gotabhaya-operated ‘Neythal’ outfit. On Thursday, a 25-year-old pregnant woman was killed on the spot when a speeding vehicle belonging to Maheswary Foundation hit her on Saraswathy Lane at Navakkiri in Valikaamam East.
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Eezham Tamil student subjected to abduction-styled arrest at university in South

[TamilNet, Friday, 08 August 2014, 09:53 GMT]
The intelligence operatives of Colombo’s military Establishment on Tuesday abducted an Eezham Tamil student attending the Faculty of Social Sciences and Languages in the Sabaragamuwa University, which is situated at Balangoda of Ratnapura District in the South. The Tamil student from Vavuniyaa in the North was allegedly ‘arrested’ with the assistance of the University administration, according to informed student circles at the University. The 25-year-old student, Niroj Yogarajah, was last seen when a lecturer had summoned him after the examination. The parents of Niroj have complained to the ‘Sri Lankan’ Human Rights Commission at Vavuniyaa on Thursday stating that they suspected the SL Terrorist Investigation Division to be behind the ‘arrest’.
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Monks-led mob disrupts Tamil victims’ meet in Colombo church

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 05 August 2014, 12:35 GMT]
Encouraged by BJP New Delhi’s stand against UN crimes investigation in the island, a Sinhala-Buddhist mob, led by monks, flexed muscles against Tamil rights activists and family members of missing persons, who went to Colombo from the Vanni districts to present their case in a meeting held at a Catholic church at Maradana in Colombo on Monday. The meeting was organised by the Center for Society and Religion and by Inform Human Rights Center and the incident took place in the presence of the US Deputy Ambassador in Colombo. The Tamil victims who went to present their plight to southerners and diplomats were largely led by Catholic church personalities of the Mannaar Diocese.
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JMO report reveals child gang rape by Sinhala navy in Jaffna islet

[TamilNet, Thursday, 24 July 2014, 23:18 GMT]
The brutal gang rape of 13-year-old girl and severe sexual abuse of 9-year-old girl have been medically established by the Judicial Medical Officer (JMO) attached to the Jaffna Teaching Hospital, informed legal sources in Jaffna told TamilNet Thursday. The girls have also stated that they were abused by Sinhala-speaking blue-uniformed men who took them to an abandoned building and subjected to the cruelty, the legal sources further said adding that the Sri Lankan judicial system was under heavy pressure from the SL military and the sources close to the SL Defence Secretary and SL presidential sibling Gotabhaya Rajapaksa not to indict the SL Navy personnel who were involved in the heinous crime.
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Protesting mother exposes occupying SL military’s false propaganda

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 22 July 2014, 17:16 GMT]
“The SL military never bought my lands. They said I need to provide details to obtain land. Then I was forced to sign a paper in Sinhala at the police station. The SL military moved into my land and has now sent notice to seize the lands permanently from me,” said a Tamil mother who protested against the land surveyors who came to her land situated along the A9 Road, at Mirusuvil in Thenmaraadchi of the Jaffna district. While the protest was going on a group of SL military intelligence operatives entered the house of a Tamil councillor, who was supporting the protesting family, threatened his wife at gunpoint and caused damage to his property. Rasiah Theivendrampillai, the councillor from the divisional council in the area, said military personnel who entered his house, while he was at the protest, burnt his bankbooks and land deeds and threatened his family.
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SL military issues threatening circular to NGOs assisting Tamil journalists

[TamilNet, Monday, 07 July 2014, 14:59 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lankan military, which recently interfered in cancelling the workshops organised for the journalists from the North and East, has now sent a threatening circular to all Non Governmental Organizations instructing them to put an immediate end to the practices of “press conferences, training for journalists and dissemination of press releases which is beyond their mandate.” Colombo’s genocidal military, which is preoccupied with sustaining the gagged condition in the occupied country of Eezham Tamils, is strongly opposed to any attempt to empower the journalists in the North and East. The SL military is also targeting to destablize the civil and political groups that help people to democratically mobilise against the structural genocide.
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Anti-Muslim violence is systematic pogrom, not communal riot

[TamilNet, Friday, 20 June 2014, 21:09 GMT]
After waging war against the nation of Eezham Tamils, there is a clear, systematic pattern of violence against the Muslims in the island of Sri Lanka during the last two years, said the State president of the Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI), Mr KKSM Tehlan Baqavi, in an exclusive interview to TamilNet this week. The Tamil Nadu politician of the pan-Indian Muslim political party urged the world to pay particular attention that the Buddhist extremist Bodu Bala Sena is a creation of the SL military system led by Gotabhaya Rajapaksa. There is a clear nexus between the military and the extremist force, he said. There is also a serious question why the pogrom is getting instigated at this juncture, despite the global focus on the records of the SL State, he said.
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