Families of the disappeared in Mullaitivu marked 500 days of protest today following months of prolonged demonstrations calling on the government to release the whereabouts of their missing loved ones.
Condemning the government's inaction and broken promises, families also criticised Tamil elected representatives for their silence.
Tamil News
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Sri Lanka’s Terrorist Investigation Division (TID) summoned the Associate Editor of Rivira Sunday newspaper to discuss an article published last month which spoke of possible LTTE activity in the North-East.
Associate Editor Tissa Ravindra Perera delivered a statement to the TID earlier this morning. The article published last month was on the reported recovery of claymore mines in Oddusuddan in Mullaitivu.
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British DUP parliamentarian Ian Paisley Jr is under pressure to resign from his post, after being found guilty of accepting all expenses paid trips funded by the Sri Lankan government, before he lobbied against an United Nations Human Rights Council resolution.
Mr Paisley Jr has been suspended from the British parliament for 30 days after a damning report by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards said his actions amounted to “paid advocacy”.
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A gang of men on motorbikes smashed up a home in a Jaffna Town suburb on Thursday night.
The men were armed with swords and also used iron rods and axes to break things in the house.
They threatened the home's residents and broke the house's doors and windows and also threw a petrol...
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There is "absolutely no threat to the security in the Northern region" the state minister for defence, Ruwan Wijewardene was quoted by the Daily Mirror as saying.
"Certain groups of people are making groundless statements to incite fear in public," he reportedly added whilst speaking at an event in Diyagama.
In recent days Sri Lankan government officials have sought to reassure the Sinhala electorate that there was no threat to national security in the North-East and that...
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Sri Lankan Navy personnel have returned a food hall of the Varatharaja Perumal Kovil in Ponnalai after having occupied it for 23 years.
After the Army captured the area from the LTTE in 1995, the coast from Ponnalai to Keerimalai became inaccessible to civilians with only the Sri Lankan...
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The Sri Lankan government is growing frustrated over China’s delays in concluding a Free Trade Agreement, the Nikkei Asian Review reports.
Colombo sent Beijing a formal request to resume talks over three months ago and has not received a response, with some observers saying China has turned a cold shoulder due to the current government’s hesitation to...
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Sri Lanka’s Court of Appeal has fixed a date for the appeal case of a Sri Lankan politician and 3 others who were convicted of murdering a British aid worker and raping his Russian girlfriend at a holiday resort in 2011, Adaderana reported.
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The JVP leader, Anura Kumara Dissanayake warned parliament against transferring Mattala airport to India, arguing it would be a threat to national security.
"Issues with national interest should be considered than losses or economic benefits of the airport. An airport is important in military affairs in a country. It can pose more threat to national security and sovereignty of the country," Mr Dissanayake was quoted by the Daily Mirror as saying.
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Explosives were recovered in Suthanthirapuram, Mullaitivu this week from private land, when a resident cleared a well inside his land.
Ammunition was found inside the well, Sri Lankan police said.
The police and navy began recovering the ammunititions yesterday with a court...
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As part of their continuing involvement in civilian life in the North-East, the Sri Lankan military was seen planting coconut trees in Myliddy this week.
Over 200 trees were planted as part of the project initiated by the Jaffna army commander, Major General...
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The head of Sri Lanka’s military declared opened a range of new buildings at military bases in Amparai last week.
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The head of Sri Lanka’s army met with a US Army Pacific Command (USPACOM) delegation last month, where he spoke of the military’s much criticised involvement in civilian projects across the Tamil North-East.
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Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister stressed to Parliament yesterday that the government had not made any plans to reduce the number of military personnel or camps in the North-East.
Responding to a question about a Sri Lankan Army circular indicating the removal of certain personnel and camps, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe claimed that the Army made its own decisions on numbers.
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The Sri Lankan government spent more than Rs 1 million to bring the controversial British politician Lord Naseby for a one-day visit to the island, reports Ceylon Today.
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The Sri Lankan military held a two day workshop for Tamil schoolchildren in the Vanni earlier this month, with an aim to “build up the image of the Sri Lanka Army”.
The event is the latest in a long history of the Sri Lankan military involving itself in civilian activities across the North-...
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File photograph:Mr Paisley with MP Liam Fox who himself resigned in 2011 after reports emerged of his dealings with the Sri Lankan government.
British parliamentarian Ian Paisley Jr has been suspended from parliament after being found guilty of accepting all expenses paid trips funded by the Sri Lankan government, before he lobbied against an United Nations Human Rights Council resolution.
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The Sri Lankan military has been accused of attempting to mislead the Right to Information (RTI) Commission over the extent and nature of sexual abuse committed by Sri Lankan troops whilst deployed as United Nations peacekeepers in Haiti.
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The chief minister of the Northern Province, C V Wigneswaran condemned the TID's attempt to collect information about new born babies in Kilinochchi, saying that they cannot collect such information as they please.
"The army seems to think the state of emergency continues. At present, when this [state of emergency] is not in place, if any information is sought from any state body, approval must be sought from the senior official," he said.
"Information cannot be collected...
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The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) MP for Batticaloa, S Yogeswaran condemned what he described as Sinhala colonisation taking place in the Eastern province with the assistance of Buddhist clergy and the Sri Lankan army.
In a letter to District Government Agent for Batticaloa, M Uthayakumar, Mr Yogeswaran condemned plans to build a Buddhist centre in Punaanai, Batticaloa for newly settled Sinhala families.
"Under the guise of resettlement, Sinhala colonisation has happened," he...
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A Tamil refugee deported from Australia this week was detained on arrival in Colombo, his brother told the Australian news agency, SBS.
Thileepan Gnaneswaran, a 30 year old father of one was...
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A house in Achchuveli, Jaffna was vandalised by unidentified men last night.
The men broke into the home around 10 pm, smashing the door, windows and glass cabinets.
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Sri Lanka’s Deputy Transport Minister has had to reassure Sri Lankan media that the loss-making Mattala Airport, currently dubbed ‘the world’s emptiest international airport’ would never be sold.
A deal with India will see the the Airports Authority of India (AAI) taking over 70% stake of the airport in a joint venture with Sri Lanka’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA).
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The UN Refugee Agency has said it is alarmed by Australia’s deportation of a Tamil asylum seeker which has left his partner, a recognised refugee, alone with their 11-month-old daughter.
UNHCR spokesperson Andre Mahecic said the agency is alarmed by a separation of a Sri Lankan refugee family in Sydney by the Government of Australia.
This latest incident goes beyond a refusal to reunite families, to instead actively and indefinitely separate them, the spokesperson said.
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A case against two Northern Provincial Council members, T Ravikaran and M K Shivajilingam for allegedly interrupting the government officials from doing their work, is set to take place at Mullaitivu court on January 7, 2019.
The case was adjourned after Mullaitivu police, who had filed the case against the two members, requesting an extension yesterday when it came before the judge.
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The head of Batticaloa District Tamil Journalists' Association and independent journalist, V Krishnakumar was called for investigation by the Terrorism Investigation Division on Monday.
Mr Krishnakumar was called to the notorious 4th floor and accused of having...
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Karaichchi Prathesa Sabai in Kilinochchi today passed a resolution demanding that military run barbers are banned.
The resolution calls for the military to be prohibited from running civilian livelihood activities without the Prathesa Sabai's approval.
Members of the Prathesa Sabai experessed concerns over the military's continuing involvement in civilian affairs and that they military appeared to be targetting young Tamil boys as customers by offering discounted, fashionable...
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Sri Lankan police officers from the Organised Crimes Prevention Division today investigated the chief minister of the Northern Province, C V Wigneswaran and local journalists over alleged supportive statements about the former UNP minister, Vijayakala Maheswaran.
The then state minister said at an event in the North-East that a resurgence of the LTTE was needed in order to deal with the rise in violent crime. She was forced to resign following condemnation by Sri Lankan politicians,...
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Four Indian fishermen have been arrested on Monday by the Sri Lankan navy for allegedly smuggling cannabis.
The navy stopped the boat in which they were travelling, close to Neduntivu.
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The Russian Embassy has reportedly contacted Sri Lanka’s Finance and Media Minister Mangala Samaraweera to seek an explanation over claims that Moscow had funded a propaganda unit for Joint Opposition MP Namal Rajapaksa.
According to a report in The Island, a spokesperson for the Russian embassy in Colombo told the paper that it “had noted Minister...
World News
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The President of Nigeria urged all states that have not yet done so to accede to the Rome Statute so that it can become a universal treaty.
Speaking at the International Criminal Court’s 20 Anniversary commemorations, Preisdent Buhari said "I urge all States that have not yet done so to, as a matter of deliberate State policy, accede to the Rome Statute of the ICC so that it can become a universal treaty."
President of the Court, Judge Chile Eboe-Osuji, said at the event:
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Israel’s Knesset has passed a controversial new law which declares the country is an exclusively Jewish nation state, as Arab lawmakers were thrown out of the parliament in protest.
The bill states that “Israel is the historic homeland of the Jewish people and they have an exclusive right to national self-determination in it” and that a "united Jerusalem" is the capital of Israel and that Hebrew is the country's official language.
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The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights is deeply disappointed by India’s reaction to the publication of the first ever UN human rights report on Kashmir last month.
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Turkey has ended its 2 year state of emergency, which was first imposed after a failed coup on July 20, 2016.
The measure normally lasts three months but was extended seven times by the President Erdogan.
The state of emergency saw the detention of around 80,000 people and double the number sacked from public jobs.
Although alleged supporters of the coup were targeted, the Turkish government used emergency laws to crackdown particularly on Kurdish activists.
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Spain’s Constitutional Court said it had blocked a motion passed in Catalonia’s parliament to resume steps to declare independence, following an appeal against the move filed by Spain’s central government.
The Catalan parliament can appeal against the decision within the next 20 days.
Both the court and the Spanish government have said that Catalonia cannot hold a referendum on independence under Spain’s constitution.
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A senior US commander has confirmed that the United States is prepared to have direct talks with the Taliban in Afghanistan, in an effort to reach a peace deal in the country.
General John Nicholson, who leads the NATO-led Resolute Support mission in Afghanistan, said that,
"Our secretary of state, Mr [Mike] Pompeo, has said that we, the United States, are ready to talk to the Taliban and discuss the role of international forces".
"We hope that they realise this and that...
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In Southern Iraq protests have spread over issues of corruption and a failure to provide basic services for people, including electricity and water shortages.
The protests initially erupted in Basra on July 8th, to which security forces cracked down on protestors and killed one person. Following this protests have continued to spread to the eastern province of Diyala and southern city of Nasiriyah. During the protests, demonstrators marched outside the headquarters of political...
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The government of Iraq has approved a proposal by Yezidi activists to convert a village school in to a museum commemorating the genocide of Yezidis by ISIS.
In 2014 ISIS launched an attack on Shingal, Kurdistan and its surrounding areas, kidnapping more than 6500 Yezidis.
1202 residents of Kocho, a village near Shingal, were gathered in the village school. 395 were shot and buried in 22 mass graves. 600 residents of the village remain missing. Many of the women are believed to...
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The new Spanish government is to set up a truth commission to investigate crimes against humanity committed under the former dictator, Francisco Franco.
The government has pledged to search for those disappeared during his rule, including carrying out public exhumations every year and recording the number of people found.
The commission is part of a new historical memory law, which also seeks to prohibit support for Franco and annul the convictions of those accused of...
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The US State of Connecticut will officially mark ‘Sikh Genocide Day’ on November 30 to commemorate the anti-Sikh pogrom in 1984 which saw around 3000 Sikhs in Delhi killed by Hindu mobs, aided by Indian law enforcement and government officials.
The bill declaring Sikh genocide day was signed in to law by the Governor of Connecticut.
Last year the government of the Canadian province of Ontario also recognised the pogrom as genocide.
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As many as 32 people have been arrested in the southern Indian state of Karnataka, after the murder a Muslim man on Friday – reportedly sparked by rumors circulating on WhatsApp.
Mohammad Azam, a 27 year old Google employee, was lynched by villagers, who accused him of abducting children. This follows a worrying trend in India in which more than 20 people, mostly non-local, have been killed due to accusations of child abduction in the last two months.
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Iceland has been elected to replace the USA on the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.
The UN General Assembly elected Iceland as the replacement effective immediately until the end of next year.
The US announced its decision to withdraw from the UNHRC last month, citing anti-Israel bias and hypocrisy.
The US was a key partner in passing the Resolution 30/1 on accountability and reconciliation in Sri Lanka, which Sri Lanka co-sponsored.
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In Belfast, the homes of two prominent Sinn Féin members, former leader Gerry Adams, and Bobby Storey, were attacked with explosive devices last night.
Both men reported that no-one was hurt in the attacks, although Northern Ireland police said they discovered the remnants of large industrial firework-type devices, capable of causing serious injury, at both scenes.
Mr Adams was the leader of Sinn Féin from 1983 until earlier this year, and was a key figure in the resistance...
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On Friday the UN Security Council approved an arms embargo on South Sudan which will last until May 2019.
The decision was narrowly passed retaining the minimum nine ‘yes’ votes but having six ‘abstentions’ from China, Russia, Ethiopia, Equatorial Guinea, Kazakhstan and Bolivia. The resolution also supports a travel ban and asset freeze of Malek Reuben Riak and Paul Malong Awan, South Sudanese military officials, who have been accused of threatening peace within the region.
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India's defence minister, Nirmala Sitharaman dismissed the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) report on Kashmir as "baseless", ANI reported.
"The report was prepared while sitting somewhere else. The assessment made by UNHRC has no basis. They are not aware of the ground realities in Kashmir," Ms Sitharaman said.
"The army is able to eliminate terrorists on the borders itself," she added.
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The United Kingdom will remain party to the European Convention on Human Rights after leaving the European Union, according to the Brexit white paper most recently published by the government.
Despite British Prime Minister, Theresa May, having previously backed leaving the ECHR, the white paper said, “the UK is committed to membership of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR)” and that “the UK will remain a party to the ECHR after it has left the EU.”
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Bosnian Muslims marked 23 years since the Srebrenica genocide in a commemoration that saw the remains of 35 victims buried at the genocide’s memorial centre.
According to The Hague Tribunal and Bosnian state court, over 7000 Bosnian Muslims, mostly men and boys, were killed by Bosnian Serb forces in July 1995.
The forces then carried out operations to conceal the crimes by using secondary and tertiary mass graves.
A total of 6575 genocide victims have been reburied at...
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Scotland's first minister and SNP leader, Nicola Sturgeon met with the Catalan president, Quim Torra on Wednesday during the newly elected leader's visit to Edinburgh this week.
In a joint statement issued after the meeting the two leaders said "the way forward...
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Cameroon’s government stated that it will open an investigation into a video that allegedly shows soldiers executing two women and their children, accusing them of being members of Boko Haram.
The mobile phone footage shows men in uniform similar to that of the Cameroonian military leading two women and their young children up a small hill, before they are blindfolded and murdered. The soldiers are heard telling them “You are going to die you BH,” referring to the Boko Haram Islamist...
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Ethiopia and Eritrea signed a declaration on Monday ending the war that existed between the two countries since the border conflict in 1998-2000.
Despite a previous peace deal in 2000 the two countries remained in a state of no war no peace as the deal failed to be implemented.
The declaration was signed at a meeting between Ethiopia's prime minister Abiy Ahmed and Eritrea's president Isaias Afewerki in Eritrea's capital, Asmara, when the two countries' leaders met for the...
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Life sentences handed to two former Rwandan mayors for their part in the Rwandan genocide were upheld by a French court on Friday.
Octavien Ngenzi and Tito Barahira had appealed after they were found guilty of crimes of against humanity, genocide and summary executions in 2016.
"This decision is just and sends a message: no to impunity for all those who took part in the genocide and who thought they could find refuge in France," said Alain Gauthier, head of a group which has...
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The UN High Commissioner of Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein this week called on member states of the Human Rights Council to refer Myanmar to the International Criminal Court rejecting the country's assertion that it was a "body committed to the defence of human rights."
““In the four years that I have been High Commissioner I have heard many preposterous claims,” he said. “This claim, that I have just stated now, almost creates a new category of absurdity. Have some shame sir....
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On Wednesday the Egyptian higher court, overturned a criminal court order that put 1,538 defendants on the country’s terror list, including the former president Mohamed Morsi.
The criminal court order which that placed these subjects on the list was passed in 2015 under an anti-terrorism law after General Abdel Fattah El-Sisi overthrew Morsi in the coup of July 2013. Joining Mr Morsi on this list was retired footballer Mohamed Abou Trika, now a sports TV analyst in Qatar, who fled...
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An investigation by a team of UN human rights experts has concluded that mass rape, dismembering of civilians and cannablism took place in the Democratic Republic of Congo during conflict that began in 2016 in the Kasai region.
Stating that both government troops and rebel fighters were suspected of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity, the team presented its findings to the UN Human Rights Council last week.
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Modi calls for ‘strong and stable relations’ between India and China 'for global peace and progress'
Photograph: Twitter @PMOIndia
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke on the importance of “strong and stable” relations between India and China, stating it was “an important factor for global peace and progress”.
Speaking before senior military and defence officials from...
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The United States announced that it has changed the name of its largest military command last week, in what officials say is a symbolic move that recognises the importance of India in the region.
"In recognition of the increasing connectivity of the Indian and Pacific Oceans today we rename the US Pacific Command to the US Indo-Pacific Command," said US Defense Secretary Mattis at a ceremony last week.
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Almost seven months of direct rule from Madrid ended this weekend after a new Catalan cabinet was sworn in.
Catalan's new leader and close ally of the previous leader, Quim Torra on Saturday sought to rebuild ties with Madrid whilst reaffirming his commitment to Catalonia's independence.Catalan's autonomy was suspended by Madrid after the region declared independence following a referendum last year.
Mr Torra said he wanted to restart talks with Madrid...
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On Wednesday a tax was passed by the Ugandan government that would charge users 200 shillings ($0.0531) per day for use of social media applications such as Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp.
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Hungarian parliament considered legislation that would criminalise providing aid to illegal migrants on Tuesday, as well as and may make such actions punishable with a prison sentence.
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Israel’s parliament last week considered a bill entitled "Prohibition against photographing and documenting IDF Soldiers” which sought to criminalise photographing Israel Defense Force soldiers on duty.