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Ceylon Teachers Union condemns Hatton National Bank

Ceylon Teachers Union today said it "strongly condemned" the decision by Hatton National Bank to suspend two employees over the commemoration of the Mullivaikkal massacre on May 18. 

"The bank needs to understand that this issue is related to the Tamil people's sentiments," the CTU's general secretary, Joseph Stalin said in a statement. 

"The bank suspending employees for remembering their loved ones who were killed is like the bank punishing the employees," he said, adding that the bank's decision had deeply hurt the Tamil people.

Two employees of the Kilinochchi branch of Sri Lanka's Hatton National Bank (HNB) were suspended on May 24 after the bank's Colombo headquarters accused them of commemorating the LTTE. 

Staff at the Kilinochchi branch held a remembrance event on May 18 to remember the tens of thousands massacred by Sri Lankan state forces during the end of the armed conflict. 

Photographs of their remembrance event were circulated among Sinhala nationalist social media pages who accused the employees of commemorating LTTE cadres. 

Following the suspension a boycott campaign has taken off across various social media platforms, with customers of the bank have been posting letters they have written to their branch managers requesting their account be closed.

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