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On this day 25 years ago, the Sri Lankan air force dropped 13 bombs on St Peter’s Church in Navaly. More than 140 sheltering Tamils, who were encouraged by the military to seek refuge at the church, were killed on the spot. At least 13 children were amongst the dead, with many more succumbing to injuries later as the local hospital was swamped with the wounded.
Tamil News
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Speaking at the 44th Session of the UN Human Rights Council, a delegate for Sri Lanka warned the UN against being “unduly politicised” whilst also claiming that Sri Lanka was committed to “UN Peacekeeping and upholding human rights”.
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A former LTTE cadre who was injured in a reported explosion in Kilinochchi, died whilst receiving treatment at the Anuradhapura Hospital yesterday.
Thangarasa Devadasan, aged 43, died after being injured in a reported explosion on July 3.
He was initially admitted to the Kilinochchi Hospital and later transferred to Anuradhapura.
At least two people, including his wife, have been arrested since.
Sri Lankan police accuse the arrested of being involved in the...
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Locals in Mullaitivu protested against land grab attempts by officials from Sri Lanka’s the District Land Survey Department last month, as Tamisla cross the North-East continue to struggle against state occupation of their land.
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The families of the disappeared in Vavuniya have responded to the Tamil National Alliance’s (TNA) election campaign and recent comments by insisting they are not going to be deceived by “Mavai – who is changing his disguise as we get nearer to the elections - and his friends of the TNA.” -
Sri Lankan Prime Minister, Mahinda Rajapaksa, has announced a special inquiry into Non-Government Organisations (NGOs) who he claims are “spreading slander against the government”, with specific concern to "foreign currency".
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The Sri Lankan navy has stepped up surveillance across the Northern coast, in response to what authorities have termed the “illegal entry” of Eelam Tamil refugees from India.
P Charles, Governor of the Northern Province, told ...
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The British High Commission in Sri Lanka said a new British sanctions regime was “an important new tool" for "tackling serious human rights violations and defending the rules-based international system”, as more sanctions are expected to be announced in the coming months.
The UK Global Human Rights sanctions regime, which was announced by the British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab yesterday, imposed sanctions on 49 individuals and organisations...
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Speaking with People for Equality and Relief in Lanka (PEARL), Gowri Koneswaran, a lawyer and writer, Ram Paramanathan, a journalist and media critic, and Abhirami Balachandran, researcher and educator, gave enlightening discussions on queer identity in the Tamil community...
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Around 50 organisations and individuals based in South Africa, including the South African Tamil Federation (SATF) and the Tamil Federation of Gauteng (TFG) have expressed their support for International Truth and Justice Project's (ITJP) executive director, Yasmin Sooka and expressed their “extreme concern and strenuous condemnation” in light of the defamation case against her,... -
A Black Tigers Day commemoration event was held in Sydney, Australia yesterday.
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Sri Lankan police have received 75.8 million Rs. to remove illegal “election propaganda” ahead of the parliamentary election and the police have hired 1,539 workers to support this effort.
The police and these workers are engaged in removing posters, banners, and cut-outs belonging to political candidates, Colombo Page has reported. Banners, cut-outs, posters, and “digital...
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Illegal sand mining has been tearing down trees and causing massive environmental damage around the Per Aru river, said locals in Mullaitivu as they feared the long term consequences of the practice.
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Sri Lankan Prime Minister, Mahinda Rajapaksa, said it was “the responsibility of journalists to make the government aware of the real issues endured by the people of the North,” as he met with Tamil Journalists earlier this week at Temple Trees.
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The Uthayan in Jaffna marked 33 years since the first ever assault by the LTTE’s elite Black Tiger unit, with a feature spread in the newspaper on Sunday.
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Sri Lanka’s Terrorist Investigation Division (TID) arrested Tamil woman in Kilinochchi, accusing her of involvement with an explosion that occurred earlier in the week and of possessing an allegedly home-made banner to mark Black Tigers Day.
The arrest occurred after a reported explosion in the area which injured a...
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UK Minister of State for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office said the UK have "noted with concern the rise in anti-Muslim sentiment in Sri Lanka" following the outbreak of COVID-19, in response to a question on Sri Lanka last week.
Nigel Adams answered a written question posed by Ruth Jones, MP for Newport West, who asked "what recent assessment he has made of the political situation in...
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Over 60 human rights organisations and 180 individuals have signed a letter in support of International Truth and Justice Project's (ITJP) Executive Director, Yasmin Sooka, who is facing threats from the Sri Lankan government.
Last month, Sri Lanka's State Intelligence Services (SIS) Major General Suresh Sallay, who stands accused of human...
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On July 5, Eelam Tamils across the world remember and mourn the sacrifices made by the LTTE's elite women and men, the Black Tigers. “Karumpuli Naal” marks the sacrifice made by the first Black Tiger, Captain Miller, or Vallipuram Vasanthan, 33 years ago.
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Despite threats and warnings issued by army and police officials in the North-East, a clay candle tribute to honour and mark Black Tigers Day was held at Jaffna University today. Students of Jaffna University went to the university premises today to pay their tributes for the fallen. -
The families of the disappeared in Vavuniya were issued a court order that prevented them from staging their scheduled protest today afternoon.
They have been demonstrating outside the post office on the Vavuniya A9 road for over 1,000 consecutive days of protest.
The court order was granted following a request from Vavuniya police officials that were concerns today’s scheduled protest would commemorate and mark the Black Tigers Day on top of their other requests and demands....
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On July 5, Eelam Tamils across the world remember and mourn the sacrifices made by the LTTE's elite women and men, the Black Tigers. “Karumpuli Naal” marks the sacrifice made by the first Black Tiger, Captain Miller, or Vallipuram Vasanthan, 33 years ago.
In 1987, he attacked a Sri Lankan Army garrison in Nelliyadi in the Jaffna district, by driving...
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Sri Lankan police have threatened Tamil National People's Front (TNPF) leader, Gajen Ponnambalam, with arrest if Black Tigers Day is commemorated today.
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A woman who was injured in an land mine explosion accident has been admitted at the Jaffna Teaching Hospital. The incident occurred while she was working on land mine demining and disposal in Iyakachchi, Kilinochchi, on Friday morning.
The 35-year-old woman and other employees of the Hello Trust were working on demining land mines when...
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Tamil People's National Alliance (TPNA) candidate and former Northern Provincial Council (NPC) member M. K. Shivajilingam has been arrested by Valvettithurai police officials today.
Shivajilingam was arrested at his home in Valvettithurai around 9:30am today. The Valvettithurai police officials claimed they had acted on a court order to arrest...
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A search operation to identify weapons used by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) was undertaken on Thursday in Maththalan, Mullaitivu. Among the retrieved documents were logos of the LTTE on fragments of fabric and cloths, Tamil Eelam Map books and children's savings account books for kids.
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The annual Nainativu Nagapooshani Amman Temple ‘Ther’ was held on Friday. The historic temple festival was celebrated in its traditionally spectacular fashion with the day commencing with the “Vasantha Mandapam Pooja” at 7am, followed by the chariot being transported to offer blessings to the devotees.
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The historic Oddusuddan Thanthondreeswarar temple hunting festival (Vettai thiruvizha) was held in Mullaitivu on Wednesday to conclude the temple's annual Thiruvizha. -
Sampath Bank, a commercial bank in Sri Lanka, has defended its staff after a viral video showing security officers at its Dehiwala branch demanded a Muslim women remove her headscarf before she enters the premises.
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The Illankai Tamil Arasu Kachchi (ITAK) has expelled the head of its women’s wing in Jaffna after she raised questions as to how over US$ 1 million of funds raised by Tamil diaspora organisations has been entirely unaccounted for by the party.
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Sri Lanka is among the three economies that the World Bank has classified into a lower category than the previous year in the 2020-21 report published this week, amidst an economic crisis on the island.
The move, which comes only a year after Sri Lanka was upgraded to an upper-middle-income country, reflects the dire financial...
World News
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The UK is set to resuming selling arms to Saudi Arabia, despite evidence that the country has committed war crimes in Yemen; the government has defended the decision stating that said crimes were “isolated incidents”.
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The UK is imposing sanctions against 49 individuals and organisations involved in notorious human rights abuses in recent years.
UK Foreign Secretary, Dominic Raab, announced that the measures will target individuals and organisations, rather than nations and will include asset freezes and travel bans.
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In a letter sent to President Félix Tshisekedi of the Democratic Republic of Congo on the 60th anniversary of its independence, King Philippe of Belgium has expressed his “deepest regrets” for the “acts of violence and cruelty” committed under Belgian occupation, but stopped short of offering a full apology and reparations for colonial rule.
For several decades, King Philippe’s ancestor, King Leopold II, brutally exploited the DRC in his pursuit of rubber and ivory...
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The United States has enacted a new set of Hong Kong-related sanctions on China and the United Kingdom has offered citizenship to the territory’s residents after Beijing passed a new highly criticised national security law.
The law, which includes 66 articles and harsh penalties, covers a wide range of alleged...
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Kosovo’s president Hashim Thaçi announced he would resign from his presidency if war crimes charges are filed against him by prosecutors at the Kosovo Specialist Chambers in The Hague.
His announcement comes after the Special Prosecutor’s Office with Kosovo Specialist Chambers publicly filed a 10-count indictment against Thaçi, accusing him of crimes...
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China has forcibly used birth control and sterilisation in an attempt to restrict the Uighur population in Xinjiang, says a newly released report, which has sparked widespread condemnation of Beijing from around the globe.
China has previously been accused of detaining over a million Uighurs and other Muslim minorities in...
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Zharo Baxtiar and his family had taken a day trip to Kuna Masi, a village in the Kurdish province of Sulaymaniyah, last Thursday, when their visit was abruptly cut short...
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Yemen is currently facing the world’s biggest humanitarian crisis, with 80% of the population in desperate need of humanitarian aid, and those figures set to worsen according to a UNICEF report which appealed for urgent ]humanitarian assistance.
The report,...
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UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, has report that as many as 10,000 people fled their homes in the northern state of Rakhine, in Myanmar, after a military crackdown against insurgents in recent weeks.
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Senior commander of Australia’s Special Air Service, Adam Findlay, admitted to soldiers committing war crimes and unlawfully executive captured fighters and civilians; he blames “poor moral leadership” and spoke out against attempts to cover up the crimes.
The first admission of war crimes from a serving officer
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Protests in the United States have sparked debates around monuments of Spanish conquistadors, as they demanded the removal of statues glorifying the Spanish conquest of the Americas and what demonstrators have termed “a celebration of genocide”.
As demonstrations against monuments of Confederate officials and slave...
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Children of migrant families in Britain may be caught up in what has been described as a “potential second Windrush-style scandal”, with controversy emerging this week as young students outlined their experiences when applying for university in the UK.
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U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, Michael Lynk, has called for the European Union to punish any moves by Israel to annex parts of the occupied West Bank.
Lynk maintains that the EU must back up warnings against annexation with actionable countermeasures. This includes possible economic, trade or other sanctions.
“We have reached a point where resolutions without resolve can no longer contribute to reaching the just and durable peace and...
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Freedom from Torture has released a report highlighting the failure of the UK Home Office is dealing with asylum seekers and torture survivors, leaving often without adequate representation and unable to give the full details of their case during interviews.
The report they compiled was based on 30 separate cases from torture survivors interviewed from 2017-2018, in addition to a further 25 torture survivors interviewed between 2017-2019. The report illustrates that many asylum...
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UK Shadow Education Secretary, Rebecca Long-Bailey has been sacked from her post in the shadow cabinet after sharing an interview of actress, Maxine Peake, which...
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The brother of George Floyd, a Black man who was murdered by US police last month, has appealed to the UN Human Rights Council during their debate regarding investigations into US police brutality and systemic racism, calling for an independent Commission of Inquiry to be...
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20 Indian soldiers have been killed in a border dispute between China and India in the Himalayan region.
This violent clash follows escalating tensions between the two countries and has resulted in the first loss of life in the border region since 1975 and the worst military crisis between the countries in almost 60 years.
Responding to the escalating violence, India’s army has reported that:
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Three former UK prime ministers have criticised the current’s British prime minister’s plan to merge the Department of International Development (DfID) with the Foreign Office into what he describes as a “super-department”.
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US President, Donald Trump, has issued an executive order authorising sanctions against International Criminal Court (ICC) employees involved in investigating whether US forces, intelligence agents, or allied countries such as Israel, committed war crimes during the conflict in Afghanistan.
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The UK Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) will investigate the UK “hostile environment” immigration policy, which led to the wrongful detention of 83 people and harassment of thousands, as part of their drive to end “systemic and entrenched race inequalities that exist in our country”.
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A French court ruling later this month may allow the opening of the archives of former French President François Mitterand and shed light on the government’s role in the Rwandan genocide, reports Euronews.
The public rapporteur of France's Council of State has ruled in favour of researcher François Graner, from the NGO Survie (Survival), which has been calling for the opening of the archives of the former French president.
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Black Lives Matters protesters in Bristol, England, tore down a statue commemorating the life of slave trader Edward Colston.
The statue of Colston was erected in 1895 and has been a great source of controversy as whilst Colston has given a great deal of money to the city, he had earned this money through slavery.
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Responding to criticism from China over the police unlawful killing George Floyd, US Secretary of State, Michael R. Pompeo has lashed out describing the Chinese Communist Party’s criticism as “obscene” and “laughable propaganda”.
Pompeo’s statement stressed that the contrast between the US and China “could not be more stark” and goes on to list a litany of human rights abuses...
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(Photo Credit: Lorie Shaull)
A group of UN rights experts have condemned America’s systemic racism and racial bias following what they term as the “lynching” of George Floyd and the outbreak of protests throughout America and across the world.
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UK Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, has vowed to enable 3 million Hong Kong residents to settle in the UK as the Chinese government introduce a draconian national security act which threatens pro-independence activists.
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UK Shadow Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, Emily Thornberry, has called for a suspension of sales of riot control equipment to the US following police crackdowns on Black Lives Matters protesters.
In a letter addressed to the Secretary of State for International Trade, Liz Truss, Thornberry stressed...
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Around 20,000 people joined protests in France yesterday over the death of a black man in police custody in 2016, that has been likened to the killing of George Floyd in the USA.
Despite police orders not to demonstrate due to coronavirus restrictions, protestors assembled to demand justice for Adama Traore...
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US President Donald Trump threatened to deploy the military to in response to ongoing protests across the country, which he has termed “acts of domestic terror”.
Trump warned that if cities or states failed to "defend their residents" he would deploy the army and "quickly solve the problem for them,” adding that police and law...
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Following the murder of George Floyd, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, headed calls from several politicians and organisations condemning the killing of a black man by police officials.
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With thousands taking to the streets across cities of the USA to protest against police brutality and the murder of George Floyd, state police forces are responding to protestors with violence and “military-style” tactics, during which a 20-year-old women was thrown forcefully to the ground and hospitalised .