46% votes in civic elections in Jaffna by end of Saturday

[TamilNet, Saturday, 23 July 2011, 08:27 GMT]
46% of registered voters in Jaffna exercised their votes in the civic elections on Saturday, election officials in Jaffna told media. Ruling UPFA men were seen in almost all election booths, violating the election rules by distributing notices and watching that their posters were not removed from the walls. In the islets off Jaffna, the voters were given alcohol by UPFA-EPDP personnel and there were widespread reports that the voters were allowed to enter the booths without proper identity checking. The Sri Lanka Army largely remained in their positions. SL Police was in duty. The voting will be taking place till Saturday 4:00 p.m.
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SL Minister Nanayakara accepts mass killings of civilians in Vanni

[TamilNet, Thursday, 21 July 2011, 22:57 GMT]
A top minister in Mahinda Rajapaksa regime has publicly accepted the mass-scale killing of Tamil civilians during the final months of the war in 2009. SL Minister and the leader of Democratic Left Front (DLF), Vasudeva Nanayakara on Tuesday said that his party accepted the important fact that innocent civilians have been killed during the Vanni war. Amid growing international pressure for an international probe into the credible allegations of war crimes in Sri Lanka, Mr. Nanayakara, who was on a propaganda drive seeking the public in Jaffna to support the Rajapaksa alliance in the upcoming civic elections in North, said that Tamils could only exert meaningful pressure on the SL government by supporting his alliance.
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Former LTTE member reported missing in Colombo

[TamilNet, Friday, 15 July 2011, 19:24 GMT]
A former LTTE member, who was detained by the Sri Lanka Army for more than one year after the Vanni war and released 9 months ago, has been reported missing in Colombo since 08 July. The missing person, 36-year-old Nanthakumar Navaratnaraja from Koddadi in Jaffna, had come to Colombo to travel abroad. On July 08, he went out from the hotel where he was staying at around 4:30 p.m. and has since been reported missing, his father said in the complaint to the police and human rights groups.
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Discrimination continues in teachers appointment in East

[TamilNet, Friday, 03 June 2011, 12:55 GMT]
A group of councilors in the Eastern Provincial Council (EPC), which already collaborates with Colombo have given a memorandum to the SL President Mahinda Rajapaksa complaining about the discrimination shown in the appointment of teachers to ‘national’ and provincial schools disregarding qualified Tamil medium teachers. P. Piyasena, a parliamentarian from Ampaa'rai elected on TNA ticket and later crossed over to the ruling UPFA and the EPC members S.Pushparajah and S.Selvarajah have signed the memorandum.
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330,000 voters ‘missing’ in Jaffna, Ki'linochchi electoral list after 2009 war of genocide

[TamilNet, Friday, 03 June 2011, 12:21 GMT]
In 2009, the number of registered voters in Jaffna electoral district that comprises of the administrative districts of Jaffna and Ki'linochchi was 816,005. This figure has dropped to 481,791 entries in the register of the electoral district of Jaffna. On Thursday, Assistant Commissioner of Elections (ACE) of Jaffna Electoral District S. Karunanithi confirmed that the SL Election Department has removed 331,214 names from the list. “Most of them have fled the country,” was the official explanation by the ACE. The untold story is that the figure also includes the victims of genocide in Vanni from the Ki'linochchi district. Meanwhile, the date for local elections for 16 Piratheasa Chapais (PS) and three Urban Councils is fixed by the department to take place on July 23, the day when Tamils remember the victims of state-sponsored anti-Tamil pogrom in 1983.
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Colombo encourages local politicians to create racial dissention in east

[TamilNet, Sunday, 29 May 2011, 02:43 GMT]
A planned move to create dissension between the two communities -Tamils and Muslims- now living with understanidng and in harmony in the Batticaloa district is being orchestrated by the ruling party local politicians with the backing of Colombo authority, sources in the east said. Mr.Ali Zahir Mowlana, Chairman of the Era’voor PS is taking steps to shift the office of the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) now located in a building in Ward 5 along Nallathamby Road in Era’voor Chengkaladi DS division to a Muslim suburb in the PS area. Tamil civic groups have urged the Regional Commissioners of Local Government Administrations in Batticaloa and Trincomalee to stop relocating government offices from Tamil areas to Muslim suburbs.
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Paramilitary confrontations trigger SLA operations in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Monday, 16 May 2011, 05:59 GMT]
The occupying SL Military has stepped up cordon and search operations and check points in Batticaloa district following the slaying two persons associated with Karuna and Pillaiyan paramilitary groups in the district. All the travellers are stopped at newly set up check point at 5th Mile Post along Kalmunai-Batticaloa Road and are being interrogated by SL intelligence personnel.
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Muralitharan's paramilitary coordinator shot dead in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 11 May 2011, 22:28 GMT]
Two unidentified gunmen, who came in a motorbike, shot and killed 38-year-old Rasamanikkam Mathiyalakan, a SLFP coordinator and an assistant to the paramilitary leader cum SL deputy minister Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan alias Karuna, Wednesday around 2:00 p.m. The killing took place at Mathiyalakan's residence located along Kalladiththeru Lagoon. Mr. Mathiyalakan was earlier an operative of the EPDP and later was associated with the Sri Lanka Army intelligence unit.
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Land encroachment in east escalates, Tamil officers face transfer threat

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 11 May 2011, 03:15 GMT]
Legal action will be taken in courts against persons who fail to leave encroached State lands in Ko'raalaippaththu South division within one month, warned V. Thavarasa, Divisional Secretary (DS), sources in the east said. Sixteen Muslims and two Tamils have encroached each about fifty acres of state lands in Aathichcheanai area in Oothuchcheanai village. Wealthy persons including businessmen and rice mill owners are among the encroachers, according to the DS office.
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UPFA controlled Ea'raavoor UC suspends workers as political revenge

[TamilNet, Thursday, 28 April 2011, 11:07 GMT]
Minor grade employees working in Ea'raavoor Urban Council for about eighteen months have been suspended from service as they did not support the ruling United peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) at the last local authority elections held in March 17, according to a written complaint to the Batticaloa Regional Office of the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka (HRCSL).
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Ampaa'rai DCC meeting conducted in Sinhala only

[TamilNet, Thursday, 28 April 2011, 11:02 GMT]
The civil authority of the Ampaa'rai administrative district, where seventy five percent are Tamil speaking officers, is conducting the meeting of the District Coordinating Committee (DCC) only in Sinhala excluding Tamil language, complained district Parliamentarian Mr.P. Piyasena who has been supporting the Mahinda Rajapakse led United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA). He was elected on the ticket of Tamil National Alliance (TNA) at the last general election held in April 2010 from the Ampaa'rai electoral district.
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Rajapaksa wants May Day rally against UN report

[TamilNet, Monday, 18 April 2011, 06:18 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s President Mahinda Rajapaksa has appealed to organizers of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party, main constituent of the ruling United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) to turn the May Day rally into a massive show of strength against the UN Experts Panel report and the people are with him despite accusation that the government had committed war crimes, according to a news report of the Sunday Times.
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Sinhala colonization threatens coastal areas of Mannaar

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 12 April 2011, 03:56 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s President Mahinda Rajapakse led United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) government has been implementing a planned scheme to settle Sinhalese persons in the southern coastal areas of Mu'l'lik-ku'lam, Thampapa'l'li in Ko'ndaichchi and areas along Madu road in the Mannaar district. Lands belonging to Tamil villagers in these areas are being grabbed to settle Sinhalese from the south, said Mr.Selvam Adaikalanathan, Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Vanni district parliamentarian in a statement to media.
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Emergency extended for another month in Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Friday, 08 April 2011, 05:08 GMT]
Sri Lanka parliament Thursday evening adopted the motion by the government to extend the state of emergency for another month with a majority of 81 votes. 98 parliamentarians from the ruling United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) and its constituents voted for the motion, parliamentary sources said.
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Sinhala hoodlum attack Up-Country Tamils after SL defeat in Cricket final

[TamilNet, Monday, 04 April 2011, 16:39 GMT]
Sinhala hoodlum including some Muslims were on the rampage in the several parts of the upcountry attacking Up-Country Tamils of Tamil Nadu origin following the defeat of the Sri Lanka to India in the World Cup final that was held in Mumbai in India last Saturday. The unruly mob had entered line rooms of upcountry Tamil families and damaged the household properties and causing cut injuries to three Tamil youths, according to Mr.Arumugan Thondaman, leader of the Ceylon Workers Congress (CWC), a constituent of the ruling United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) led by Mahinda Rajapaksa. About 25 upcountry Tamil youths had been admitted in Dikkoya hospital with cut injuries caused by sharp weapons.
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New Elections Commissioner appointed

[TamilNet, Friday, 25 March 2011, 11:30 GMT]
Mahinda Deshapriya has been appointed as Sri Lanka’s new Commissioner of Elections consequent to the retirement of the incumbent Dayananda Dissanayake from March 24 Thursday. Dehspriya is to assume duties on Friday, according to a media release by the Presidential Secretariat Thursday evening. Currently Deshapriya is the Deputy Commissioner of Elections.
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Appeal Court reserves order on Jaffna local poll nomination rejection

[TamilNet, Thursday, 24 March 2011, 11:28 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s Court of Appeal Wednesday reserved its order for May 5 in regard to nineteen Writ Applications by the ruling United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) against rejection of its nomination lists by the Returning Officers of the districts of Jaffna and Killinochchi to the elections to the nineteen local bodies. Elections to the 19 local bodies in the two districts were postponed by the Commissioner of Elections till the determination of the writ applications.
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Elections to 98 local bodies expected in May: SL Elections Secretariat

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 22 March 2011, 02:50 GMT]
Elections to 64 local bodies postponed due to legal issues and 34 local bodies postponed due to the ongoing Cricket World Cup are expected to be held in May this year, Sri Lanka’s Elections Secretariat sources said without specifying a date. Preliminary steps are being taken to hold elections to local bodies in Jaffna and Ki'linochchi district which were postponed following the rejection of nomination papers submitted by the ruling United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) by the Jaffna District Returning Officer.
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SL Minister Hisbullah's men lead post election violence in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Monday, 21 March 2011, 23:57 GMT]
1.5 million rupees worth fishing equipments belonging to the supporters of the Peoples’ Movement for Good Governance (PMGG) that contested the election to the Kaaththaankudi Urban Council held last Thursday against the ruling United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) led by Deputy Minister M.L.A.M.Hisbullah. Armed gang deployed allegedly by Mr. Hisbulla had set fire to fishing huts of PMGG supporters, according to complaints lodged with the police by the victims.
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UPFA expects cabinet reshuffle

[TamilNet, Monday, 21 March 2011, 23:54 GMT]
Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa is expected to replace the incumbent SL Prime Minister D.M.Jayaratne with a new face in a new cabinet reshuffle expected at any time, UPFA sources in Colombo said.
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