Minister threatens to close Jaffna University for one year

Start lectures or face closure: SB tells Jaffna Uni. - Sunday Times
Higher Education Minister S.B. Dissanayake warned that the Jaffna University would be closed if academic activities did not recommence tomorrow. “I have told the university authorities that, willingly or unwillingly, we will have to close the university, even for one year, if campus activities are not normalised,” Mr Dissanayake told the Sunday Times.

Army harasses Tamil students : Reconciliation or repression in Jaffna University?

Kumar David
Let there be no doubt about it; the military entering Jaffna University, framing allegations and incarcerating Tamil students is intended to send a chilling and brutal message to all Tamil dissent. "We have crushed you once, don’t dare raise your heads again; we will do it again. Learn your place as second class citizens of Lanka; a new social order has been defined. Live with it!" The reconciliation and rebuilding covenant that Rajapaksa tried to sell to the international community has caved in; the age of another round of ethnic conflict is opening up.

Jaffna Arrests: Replaying The 1970s

Military rules Jaffna life

M. A. Sumanthiran MP
November 27th this year marked an important milestone in the different phases of ethnic relations in this country. For those of us who still retain the memory of the events of 40 years ago, it was like Déjà vu. Students of the Jaffna University observed Heroes’ Day within the University premises.
 The security forces invaded a female hostel; beat several students who protested the next day and the Terrorist Investigation Division (TID) of the Sri Lanka Police arrested four University students. Subsequently over 40 other youth have also been arrested and detained.

Sri Lanka’s TID summons Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam

Sri Lanka’s Terrorist Investigation Division (TID) has sent summons to Tamil National People’s Front (TNPF) President, Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam, asking him to be present at its investigating office in Colombo on Saturday for inquiries. The summon note, entirely in Sinhala language, was served at Gajendrakumar’s residence in Colombo by a TID officer on Thursday afternoon. Mr. Gajendrakumar is currently outside of the island, informed sources told TamilNet. Meanwhile, notices in Sinhala and English, viciously implicating TNPF Secretary and former TNA parliamentarian, Selvaraja Kajendran as one of the key persons behind the ‘pro-LTTE and TNA/ TNPF network’ in the Jaffna University, is being circulated in the south of the island.

Sending Jaffna students to rehab illegal - Sumanthiran

Amila Jayasinghe
Sending the Jaffna University students, recently arrested for lighting lamps in commemoration of the LTTE Martyrs’ Day, to a rehabilitation camp, without producing them in courts, is legal, the Joint Opposition charged.
Addressing the media in Colombo today, Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Parliamentarian M.A. Sumanthiran said the issue is quite serious, as it has happened at a time when the government has pronounced terrorism has come to an end.

Deans foil SL military attempt to direct Jaffna University

An An-32 unloading supplies and troops at Palaly in Jaffna. (File photo: Indian Air force)

The commander of the occupying Sinhala military in Jaffna, Maj. Gen. Mahinda Hathurusinghe now ventures to directly order the academics and to run the University of Jaffna from his military base at Palaali, news sources in Jaffna said, citing his call to the deans of the faculties to meet him at Palaali on Wednesday to talk to them on resuming classes at the university. All the faculty deans in unison rejected the call and told the Vice Chancellor that it amounts to militarisation of education. Meanwhile, the talks between the Student Council and the Vice Chancellor of the university on Wednesday failed as the students have categorically conveyed their decision of not attending to classes until all the student leaders detained by the SL military are released.

Sri Lanka: Free or Charge Detained Students of Jaffna University - HRW

Non violence met with state violence , Jaffna 27 Nov 2012

Arresting four students without charge and sending them off for ‘rehabilitation’ sends a dangerous message that any Tamil can be detained arbitrarily and indefinitely. The Sri Lankan authorities should realize that such actions generate legitimate grievances, not reconciliation. -Brad Adams, Asia director

(New York) – The Sri Lankan authorities should immediately release or credibly charge four ethnic Tamil students from Jaffna University who have been detained since early December 2012, Human Rights Watch said today. The Terrorist Investigation Department (TID) arrested the students amid unrest in the northern city of Jaffna following a security crackdown in late November against attempts to commemorate dead leaders of the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

Demilitarize north and east’ - Protest in Colombo

Convener of the Movement for Equal Rights Ravindra Mudalige alleges the government has failed to guarantee at least the basic rights of the northern and eastern people even more than three years after the war.

He was speaking yesterday (Dec. 18) at a protest in front of Colombo Fort railway station to demand freedom for the arrested Jaffna student leaders and demilitarization of the two provinces.