Sri Lanka: Heading towards a ‘third warning’ from Geneva

Manekshaw
The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) has officially rebuked the call made by President Mahinda Rajapaksa in Parliament last week to participate at the Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) to deal with the Tamil question.

Three Churches in Hikkaduwa and Angunukolapalassa Under Attack on Christmas Eve.

As the world prepared to celebrate Christmas on the 24th evening, three churches in the South of Sri Lanka were attacked by mobs.


The pastor of the Assemblies of God church in Angunukolapalassa was surrounded by a mob of over 300 villagers together with Buddhist monks, demanding he stops all worship services planned for Christmas day. The mob alleged that there was a police complaint made by a Buddhist monk against the pastor’s religious activities.

Colombo has annulled ‘arrest warrant’ says Sitsabeisan

[TamilNet,]
“Sri Lankan authorities have confirmed that their previous claims of an arrest warrant in my name does not exist and I now look forward to exploring and learning more about the country of my birth,” says Ms Rathika Sitsabeisan, the elected Eezham Tamil MP from Canada, in a statement released by her party, NDP, in Canada on January 01, 2014.

Full text of the statement from Ms Sitsabeisan follows:

Canadian NDP MP Rathika Sitsabaiesan held by 'terrorism' investigators in Sri Lanka: Report

Rathika Sitsabaiesan

David Akin  
OTTAWA -- Military officers in Sri Lanka apparently placed an NDP MP visiting the Indian Ocean island under house arrest Tuesday, confining Rathika Sitsabaiesan to her hotel, according to disputed news reports.
The reports said Sitsabaiesan was met at her hotel in Jaffna, the capital of Sri Lanka's Northern Province, by a military official from the Sri Lankan "Terrorist Investigation Department" (TID) Tuesday evening after she had visited some Tamil-dominated areas in the north part of the country.

What is the transparent inquiry they are talking about? - President Rajapaksha

Add caption

One of the main cries of the international community is that of allegations of war crimes against the Lankan forces and the government’s failure to have a transparent investigation. With the UNHRC sessions coming up and the threat by the British Premier, what measures have you taken to ensure a swift and transparent investigation into these allegations?
What is the transparent investigation they are talking about?  Two or three years back, some panel was constituted outside Sri Lanka and without even visiting this country, without weighing all the evidence available, they just listened to some groups of people who influenced them in some way or the other, published a report that has been condemned by many right thinking people throughout the world as biased.

SriLanka immigration officials ‘investigate’ Canadian Tamil MP in Jaffna

Following the interrogation on Tuesday by the Sri Lankan Terrorist Investigation Department, who placed the visiting Eezham Tamil parliamentarian from Canada, Ms Rathika Sitsabaiesan, from 7:00 p.m. to midnight under an unofficial house-arrest, the immigration officials of occupying Colombo have subjected her for a second round of investigations Wednesday noon. As the Canadian MP was on a private visit to the island, the SL immigration officials would be carrying out an investigation to see whether she had violated the kind of visa utilized to her, the officers have told Wednesday. 

Sri Lanka: Tamil Journo Deported by SL Denies Visa Violation Charge

Express News Service - CHENNAI
Maha Tamil Prabhakaran, a journalist, who was deported from Sri Lanka to India, after he was detained on charges of videographing the vital Army and Naval installations in the island nation, on Tuesday, denied that he had flouted the visa norms.
Speaking to media persons, Prabhakaran said he was moving around in the island like any other tourist from other countries would do and was taking pictures only on the spots where photography was allowed.

‘Bribery Chief received kickbacks’- Petition handed over .

The Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) today handed over a complaint against the Chief of the Bribery Commission, Jagath De Silva Balapatabendi to the Bribery Commission, alleging that he received kickbacks after having sat on a Supreme Court bench, which released a consignment of vehicles.
 JVP MP Sunil Handuneththi said the only authority that the public can complaint of corruption is now under allegations of corruption and that officials of the institutes appointed to investigate corruption should be clean.

‘After terrorism is eradicated'; but people in the North and East still live in terror.- Bishop of Mannar

Sulochana Ramiah Mohan
Bishop of Mannar, Dr. Rayappu Joseph, in an interview with Ceylon Today says he has always been accused of being an LTTE supporter by senior ministers of the government and adds that he thinks Minister Keheliya Rambukwella, who recently accused him of being a spokesperson for the LTTE, is misusing his position as the government spokesperson, using official platforms to utter personal opinions.
 
Following are excerpts:

Deported Journalist Claims Torture in SriLanka

Tamil Nadu journalist Tamil Prabhakaran arrived in Chennai on Saturday after the Sri Lankan Terrorist Investigation Division (TID) handed him over to the Immigration Department for deportation.
The TID had apparently concluded after interrogation that he had no terrorist links and had not indulged in terrorist activity, and that the only fault was that he had violated visa regulations.

A radically new political critique needed in the New Year

At the close of a year that has proved to be disastrously negative for Sri Lankan democracy, Sri Lankans should look to the Indian people to see the manner in which democracy is defended by bold action on the ground.
Lessons from across the Palk Strait
This Saturday, India’s unassuming anti-corruption activist Arwind Kejriwal assumed office as Delhi’s seventh – and youngest – Chief Minister after resoundingly defeating his predecessor, seasoned front-liner of the Congress Party Sheila Dixit in assembly polls earlier this month.

Sri Lanka deports Indian reporter covering ex-warzone

COLOMBO: Sri Lanka has deported an Indian journalist arrested on a charge of working in the island's former war zone without media credentials, police said.
The 24-year-old, who was working for a magazine based in the Indian city of Chennai, was arrested on Christmas Day for photographing military installations in Sri Lanka's north, police spokesman Ajith Rohana said.

Sri Lanka: TNA team to head to Geneva

A Tamil National Alliance (TNA) will go to Geneva to push for an international independent investigation into alleged war crimes abuses committed during the final stages of the war in Sri Lanka.
TNA MP Suresh Premachandran said that the party will also brief foreign diplomats on the situation in Sri Lanka ahead of the UN Human Rights Council meeting in Geneva in March.

Indian journalist arrested in Sri Lanka

New York-The Committee to Protect Journalists today called for the immediate release of an Indian journalist and filmmaker who was arrested in Sri Lanka on Wednesday while allegedly filming and photographing a military base.

Tamil Prabhakaran was arrested by Sri Lankan security forces in the northern Kilinochchi district and is undergoing an investigation by the island nation's Terrorist Investigation Department on charges of violating visa regulations and taking pictures of a military installation, The New Indian Express reported.

Rift Between Wigneswaran, Guv Deepens in North Lanka

 P K Balachandran
The conflict between the Governor and the Chief Minister of Sri Lanka’s Tamil-speaking Northern Province is escalating with Governor Maj Gen G A Chandrasiri asking the police to investigate telephonic threats to Chief Secretary R Vijayalakshmi, who he had appointed in the teeth of opposition from Chief Minister C A Wigneswaran. On his part, Wigneswaran has been saying publicly that the Lankan government is commissioning a “former LTTE military commander to restart an LTTE outfit subservient to the powers-that-be,” with an aim of eliminating Tamil National Alliance (TNA) leaders. The CM reportedly said this both in his budget speech on December 10, and at a meeting of Sarvodaya workers in Colombo on December 21.

Colombo arrests Indian journalist touring Vanni

A young journalist from Tamil Nadu, Thamizh Mahapirapaharan, who was touring in the North was arrested by the occupying Sri Lankan military and the SL police Wednesday noon, while he was talking to the parish priest of St. Antony’s Church in Ponnavea’li, news sources in Vanni said. The Indian journalist visiting the island on tourist visa was together with Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian S. Sritharan, Northern Provincial Council (NPC) member S. Pasupathipillai and Karaichchi Piratheasa Chapai (PS) member S. Thayaparan during the detention, interrogation and arrest, the news sources further said.

Sri Lanka war dead count improper: Tamil party

World | Press Trust of India

inSh

Colombo:  Sri Lanka's main Tamil party today said a census to ascertain the number of dead and disappeared in the country's nearly three-decade-long civil war was not being conducted properly.
"We feel that the census is not being properly conducted," said M A Sumanthiran, a senior leader of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA).
TNA's grassroots representatives in the former conflict zone were of the opinion that the census was not being done in the right manner, he said.
In September, the TNA swept the first polls held in the Tamil-majority Northern Province after 25 years.

Freudian motive to Sri Lanka's notoriety in rape

While one may expect that the word "sex" may emerge as a heavily searched word in Google, what is surprising is that Sri Lanka has created a world record for topping the list of the countries with the most number of searches for this "word" viewed by philosopher Freud as the most important in the dynamics of the psyche of humankind. Sri Lanka has excelled in demonstrating this Freudian motive even while the Rajapakse family had over two years ago banned most such web sites about sex, preventing Sri Lankans in logging into those sites.

Sri Lanka: HRCSL should defend human rights, not the regime

 The Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka (HRCSL) had submitted to President Mahinda Rajapaksa and the Justice Minister Rauff Hakeem, recommendations in order to enhance the powers and mandate of the Commission. The recommendations have envisaged to endow the Human Rights Commission with powers to enact its recommendations by submitting them to the High Court or the Court of Appeal; powers to enact interim orders; powers to conduct investigations into matters of national concern and authority to issue warrants bearing the signature of the Chairman of the Human Rights Commission in the face of warrants being ignored by individuals.

Sri Lanka: PPPR Recommends an Election Judge Should be Appointed to Investigate into Election Malpractices

Transparency International Sri Lanka’s Election Monitoring arm, ‘The Programme for Protection of Public Resources (PPPR)’ has recommended that an Election Judge should be appointed to investigate into election violations and malpractices with special focus on the misuse of public resources. As for offences against public property, presently only the Attorney General can go to courts on the misuse of public resources. This should be revised to entertain private plaints.

Sri Lanka: Official alleges Growth Rate massaged; 5.5 growth rate changed to 6

The Census and Statistics Department’s National Accounts Division Director H.S. Wanasinghe in a revelation made during an investigation, the report of which is now filed as a document in court and referred to in Parliament last week said the Department’s Director General had told him to inflate the economic growth rate initially computed by them to show a higher rate.

SL Police officer threatens rights activist Sundaram in Trincomalee

[TamilNet]
The Sri Lankan Police Inspector, who is in charge of the Trincomalee Police Station had threatened the head of the committee of missing persons, Mr Sundaram Mahendran, when he went there to make a complaint on the attack on him and the protesters on the Human Rights Day. A squad of masked men, allegedly operated by the intelligence wing of the occupying SL military, attacked the peaceful protest organized on December 10 as the SL police was watching the Sinhala squad’s assault on the demonstrators. Mr Sundaram was wounded in the attack and admitted to the hospital. 

Sri Lanka at UNHRC: Government To Reject Resolution;the army did not commit human rights violations.

The government says it will reject any resolution put forward by Britain on Sri Lanka at the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) next March.
The British government said last week it was looking at co-sponsoring a resolution on Sri Lanka at the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in March next year.

Sri Lanka: The TNA-Rajapaksa confrontation; It is time to call the regime’s bluff

Kumar David
"Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living"

- Marx: Eighteenth Brumaire

New mass grave found in Sri Lanka four years after war

Agence France-Presse

inShare

olice tape closes off part of a mass grave, at the Matale hospital compound in central Sri Lanka. (File pic)

Colombo:  An unmarked mass grave has been found in Sri Lanka's former war zone, the first discovery of an unmarked gravesite since troops defeated Tamil rebels more than four years ago, police said on Sunday.

Construction workers in the coastal district of Mannar stumbled on at least 10 skeletal remains buried at a location where they were laying a new water pipe, said police spokesman Ajith Rohana.