Sri Lanka: Locals protest against rape of 11y girl by SL navy in Karainagar

Locals in Karainagar protested on Friday against the rape of an 11 year old girl by Sri Lankan navy personnel in the town earlier this week. Marching across the town, locals held placards demanding the Sri Lankan military end their occupation of the Tamil areas. Politicians from the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) and the Tamil National People's Front (TNPF) joined locals in protest. The girl was admitted to Jaffna hospital on Wednesday following the attack.

Sri Lanka: Journalists threatened whilst documenting appropriation of Tamil land

Journalists who went to report on the preemptive surveying of private Tamil land that was in a land appropriation dispute in court, were threatened by the Sri Lankan navy on Friday. Threats were made to the journalists as they attempted to photograph and document the Sri Lankan navy surveying private Tamil land that the government was in the process of appropriating, reports Uthayan. "This is our region, you cannot take photographs within this," warned navy personnel, whilst taking photographs of the journalists

TG

Sri Lanka: Katchatheevu issue has to be revisited by Centre; BJP endorses Jayalalitha's position

Katchatheevu, shown by the arrow

Virtually endorsing the ruling AIADMK’s demand for retrieval of Katchatheevu, BJP on Sunday said the issue of Indian sovereignty over the islet, ceded to Sri Lanka by India in 1974, has to be revisited.
“The issue of Indian sovereignty over Katchateevu has to be revisited,” BJP general secretary P. Muralidhar Rao, who is in-charge of party affairs in Tamil Nadu, told reporters here when asked about his party’s stance on the matter.

'Modi committed to protect rights of Sri Lankan Tamils'

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is committed to protect the rights of Sri Lankan Tamils, Union minister Pon. Radhakrishnan today said.    "Modi is committed to save the life and rights of Tamils in Sri Lanka," Radhakrishnan, who was inducted as a Minister of State in the new government said.
 Replying to a query on the opposition of Tamil parties to the invitation of Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa to Modi's swearing-in ceremony, he said the government is concerned about the problems of Tamils and there is no need to fear.
BS

Erasing Identities: Tracing Sri Lanka’s Post-war Journey through the Changing Realities of Trincomalee

Trinco by sunset (photo : Asia rooms)

''The experience of minorities in the beautiful eastern district of Trincomalee perfectly encapsulates the dark and depressing reality facing minority communities across Sri Lanka. Trincomalee’s remaking is part of a larger national-level project. The new Trincomalee is a microcosm of the post-war Sri Lanka. At the expense of minorities, the Rajapaksa government is building a Sinhalese-Buddhist nation that is intolerant, illiberal, and regressive. Five years on, any possibility of national reconciliation seems entirely distant and improbable. ''

Elijah Hoole

Why should Tamils speaking of the war be such an explosive issue five years after it ended, a war in which neither side owned a monopoly on terrorism?

Military in Jaffna ( file photo)

Jaffna University: In the Shadow of War and Peace on a War-Footing

Postwar, Jaffna University has shown considerable promise. After the lethargy and isolation of the war years, students from all communities are studying in the University, showing greater interest in their studies and library usage has livened up. The challenge is to provide a quality academic environment and reputation for probity in administration so that these students who work hard will take away with them the qualifications that are respected for worthy intellectual effort. Then we have ominous intrusions that dash hopes of the University regaining the stature it had in the 1970s and early 1980s.

Sri Lanka: military wants Jaffna University shut down on Mu’l’livaaykkaal Day

The Registrar of the University of Jaffna Mr V. Kandeepan, has issued a notice instructing the students at the University hostels to vacate the premises between 16 May and 20 May without citing any reason. All the education activities have also been cancelled for four days, bringing the entire University to a standstill during the Mu’l’livaaykkaal Remembrance this year. The instruction has come from the occupying Sri Lankan military, informed sources told TamilNet. Since 2009, the University student community has been fighting for the collective right of remembering those who sacrificed their lives in the Tamil struggle.

Sri Lanka ranked 26th in 2014′s Peoples under Threat index and fell five places from 2013′s ranking

The overall measure for each country is based on a basket of 10 indicators. The number in each row is drawn from the source for that particular indicator. The sources of data and calculations used are detailed on   Sri Lanka ranked 26th in 2014′s Peoples under Threat index and fell five places from 2013′s ranking.Visit the interactive map here

More than one lakh Sri Lankan Tamil refugees live on low rations in dingy camps in TamilNadu

Paramita Ghosh, Hindustan Times

Karuna starts each time a car stops outside the door. He shows his wounds at the hands of the Sri Lankan army; the ones that have been inflicted by an Indian policeman hurt no less. “I should return to the camp,” he says after an hour. “I’m out of work, I might be asked by the cops why I had to stay out so late.” 

No one takes a pause in Chennai. The sentences spoken are long, the exchanges, hurried, and there is drama everywhere. By the time we reached another house in a lane, where we had hurriedly gathered after a failed attempt to interview refugees at a camp, we had had enough.

Colombo stages smokescreen operations to divert global focus on crimes: TNA councillor

 Sivagi: killings look
like a political smokescreen

[TamilNet]

The so-called revival or regrouping of the LTTE and the arrests made during the sessions in Geneva, targeting of rights activists, and now claiming the episode over by killing three alleged ex LTTE members under suspicious circumstances, looks operation carefully managed by the Sri Lankan military intelligence, blames TNA councillor and former parliamentarian M.K. Shivajilingam. The reaction comes after the Sri Lankan military claimed that it had slain three LTTE members who were re-organising the movement.

Ministry of defence press release on the killing of 3 Tamils

PRESS RELEASE :
ATTEMPTED RESURGENCE OF THE LTTE AND THE INCIDENT IN THE JUNGLE OFF PADAVIYA ON 11 APRIL 2014 

 An attempt for resurgence of terrorism in Sri Lanka surfaced in general area Pallai in the Jaffna Peninsula calling for launching another phase of the LTTE struggle for a separate state. The information on several key suspects who were leading the campaign for resurgence of the LTTE also surfaced. Investigators made several arrests that led to recovery of arms, ammunitions, explosives and other material that were in their possession.

Sri Lanka: 60 Tamils detained for subversive acts . Police

Tamils protest over detentions

Police said today that 60 people including 10 women had been arrested and detained by the Terrorist Investigations Division (TID) during the past two months for allegedly supporting subversive activities in violation of the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA).  Police spokesman Ajith Rohana said they were arrested amidts reports of a reemergence of the LTTE. Most of the arrests have been done after a policeman was shot in Kilinochchi by K.P. Selvanayagam also known as 'Gobi' a former LTTE operative who escaped after the shooting.

Sri Lanka: A modern version of McCarthyism.; Asset Freeze Threatens Peaceful Dissent

Overbroad Anti-Terror Law Targets 16 Tamil Diaspora Groups

The Sri Lankan government is using vague counterterrorism regulations to tie the major diaspora Tamil groups to the ruthless but defunct LTTE. This broad-brush sanction could then be used to punish local Tamil activists and politicians with international ties. - Brad Adams, Asia director

The Sri Lankan government’s decision to label 16 overseas Tamil organizations as financers of terrorism is so broad that it appears aimed at restricting peaceful activism by the country’s Tamil minority, Human Rights Watch said today. The government should provide evidence of the unlawful activity of specific groups and individuals or remove them from the list.

32 Lankans living in India on the list of banned LTTE remnants

Thirty two Sri Lankans currently residing in India are among 422 individuals named by the Sri Lankan government as members of the banned LTTE offshoots. Sri Lanka last week banned LTTE and 15 other Tamil diaspora groups for their alleged terror links and prohibited its nationals from making any contacts with them. Some 422 individuals, including 32 people presently residing in India, were named in the Sri Lankan government gazette dated March 21.

Sri Lanka Gazette notice proscribes over 400 Tamil diaspora individuals and Diaspora organisations.

The Gazette notification printed on Friday by the Government Printer, containing the order issued by the Government to proscribe groups operating overseas with alleged LTTE links, has listed 424 individuals and Diaspora organisations.

The Government had last week announced that 16 groups had been listed under a UN Security Council resolution but the Gazette notification seen by the Colombo Gazette shows a list of over 400 people including individuals living in countries like Denmark, Germany, Finland, etc.

The Gazette also mentions individuals and organizations with alleged links to the Taliban and Al Qaida, two internationally known terrorist outfits.

The logic of the ban :How the proscription of 16 Tamil diaspora groups will be felt locally and internationally

Diaspora supported TNA

Ranga Jayasuria
The government this week banned the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and 15 other Tamil Diaspora organizations under the UN Security Council Resolution 1373, which sets out strategies to combat terrorism and terrorist financing.

Sixteen groups were designated as terrorist groups and front organizations in an order signed by the External Affairs Minister G.L.Peiris and a gazette notification is expected to be issued to that effect in the near future. Customarily, it is the President who is also the Minister of Defence who has authority to designate terrorist groups.

Diaspora orgs proscription should not be used to stifle free speech and legitimate criticism, UK tells Sri Lanka

Tamil protesters outside the Sri Lankan consulate
in Toronto, May 2009.( Toronto Star)

The UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) has raised the proscription of Tamil diaspora organisations with the Sri Lankan government, “making clear that proscription should not be used to prevent or stifle free speech and legitimate criticism”, a spokesperson for the FCO told Tamil Guardian today.

Highlighting the FCO’s good relations with Tamil diaspora organisations, the spokesperson confirmed that the UK would continue this engagement.

“The UK government has good relations with a wide range of NGOs and civil society organisations with an interest in Sri Lanka including the Global Tamil Forum and British Tamils Forum both of whom publicly state that they work through

Banning Tamil Diaspora groups in Sri Lanka: a blatant measure to attack freedom of expression - GTF

GTF head Rev. Dr S.J. Emmanuel ( GTF photo)

GTF criticises proscription of Tamil diaspora groups by Joan Ryan

The Government of Sri Lanka’s decision to proscribe sixteen Tamil diaspora organisations and four prominent Tamil diaspora activists, including Global Tamil Forum (GTF) and its President Rev. Dr S.J. Emmanuel, as ‘foreign terrorist entities’ and fronts for the defeated Tamil Tigers (LTTE) is shameful. This is the latest attempt by a Government hell-bent on intimidating and silencing those who demand truth, justice and accountability both for the alleged war crimes committed during Sri Lanka’s armed conflict and for the on-going perpetration of human rights abuses.

Banning Tamil Diaspora groups in Sri Lanka: attempt to criminalise the Tamils around the world - BTF

Tamil Diaspora demo

"We reject the baseless allegations and propaganda of the Sri Lankan state branding all Tamil Diaspora organisations as terror groups or terror fronts. In the United Kingdom, British Tamils Forum, representing British Tamils have a long history of civic activism and political advocacy.  Our organisation is democratic, transparent, accountable and legitimate.  We operate in conformity with British and International laws adhering to democratic values.

Sri Lanka bans 16 Tamil Diaspora organistions as a response to UNHRC 25 resolution

The Sri Lankan government has in a decisive move with far reaching implications proscribed as foreign terrorist entities, several overseas organizations suspected of being fronts of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The government banned the organizations as “foreign terrorists” utilising the UN Security Council Resolution 1373 which was brought about by the USA on September 28, 2001 after the attack on World Trader Center in New York on September 11, 2001.

It is expected that External Affairs Minister Prof. Gamini Lakshman Peiris will announce details of the proscription imposed on such foreign terrorist entities later this week.