Sri Lankan police have assaulted a Tamil journalist in Jaffna earlier today, leading to him being admitted into hospital for treatment of his injuries
Tamil News
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Muslims in Mannar protested for the release of their lands from Sri Lankan navy occupation.
The protestors called for the release of 35 acres of land in Silavathurai which displaced families have been unable to return to due to the navy's occupation.
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The Sri Lankan army announced that if had expanded its military-run holiday resort in Jaffna this week, as it continues to consolidate its presence in the Tamil homeland.
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Tamil families of the disappeared were blocked from protesting in front of the Sri Lankan prime minister in Mullaitivu by police.
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The Crusaders for Democracy party of former LTTE cadres has slammed the Sri Lankan prime minister’s remarks in Kilinochchi calling for Tamils to “forgive and forget”, saying the Sri Lankan government will have to face accountability for atrocities committed against the Tamil people.
In a statement, the party said Sinhalese politicians “would not dare come down even a little from the Sinhala-Buddhist nationalist mentality which they have adopted at their core.”
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Displaced Tamils in Munthirigai Kulam, Manalaaru expressed anger after army soldiers were seen harvesting paddy fields in the village.
The Tamil residents in the village were displaced in 1984.
Sinhala settlements have since been built by on the site by the government and the village has been renamed as 'Nelum Vewa'.
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Residents in Mullaitivu condemned police injustice and partiality yesterday, accusing officers of failing to take action on gang violence.
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A house in Kiliveddy, Muttur was targetted by a hand grenade attack on Tuesday.
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The president of the Philippines boasted that his Sri Lankan counterpart Maithripala Sirisena told him he would follow his lead in conducting a brutal crackdown on drug use and “kill the bastards”, in a speech in Davao City this week.
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A Tamil home in Jaffna was attacked with petrol bombs last night by a group of unknown persons who arrived by motorbike.
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A Sri Lankan court has further remanded a group that was arrested last year, accused of vandalising a Buddha statue in Mawanella, in the south of the island.
The group of eleven people have now been remanded until February 27. Amongst those being held are people who were arrested for providing accommodation to some of those accused of...
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Whilst Tamils in the North-East continue to protest for the military to leave their lands, the Sri Lankan army organised a tennis tournament at its occupying military base in the Vanni last week.
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Occupation and colonisation in Mullaitivu are more pressing issues than development, a Tamil National Alliance (TNA) MP told the Sri Lankan prime minister.
Speaking at a meeting during prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe’s visit to the North on Saturday, TNA MP Shanthi Sriskantharajah highlighted that development efforts were secondary to the need to end and reverse the occupation and appropriation of Tamil lands in Mullaitivu.
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Sathiyamoorthy, the Tamil journalist killed inside the ‘No Fire Zone’ by a Sri Lankan army artillery barrage in February 2009, was remembered by journalists and writers in Jaffna on Sunday.
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Keppapulavu residents defied increased security force presence to protest the visit of Sri Lankan prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe.
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The Sri Lankan navy announced that it had arrested a man in Kayts on Thursday, accusing him of possessing 2kg of cannabis.
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Families of the disappeared in Mullaitivu have launched a petition campaign on Saturday, calling for an international accountability mechanism to ensure justice for their loved ones.
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The former Chief Minister of the Northern Province called on the Tamil diaspora as well as lawyers and politicians across the North-East to work towards ensuring that the genocide of Tamils becomes internationally recognised.
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The Chairman of the Office of Missing Persons (OMP) has said the DNA of the families of the disappeared would be tested against remains excavated from the Manner mass grave, if radiocarbon dating tests reveal skeletal remains are of those who had died recently.
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A 23-year-old Tamil youth was assaulted by the Sri Lankan army on Friday at a restaurant in Eechchankulam, Vavuniya.
The youth, orginally from Kalmadu, was playing with friends at the local sports ground before he went to the army run restaurant near by, where he was assaulted by a group of soldiers after a...
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Displaced families in Keppapulavu who have been protesting continously for several months, rejected the idea of being granted alternative lands, reiterating their call to be allowed to return to their homes.
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The wife of a forcibly disappeared Tamil from Mannar has appealed for protection after she was harassed in her home by purported Sri Lankan intelligence personnel.
Anantharaja Edna Dias from Pesalai filed a complaint with the Human Rights Commission, Mannar on February 13, stating that there were threats to her and her three children’s lives...
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The Sri Lankan government’s failure to establish an accountability mechanism for violations of International law means that referral to the International Criminal Court or the creation of another international mechanism “would be fully warranted," said the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), in a statement to the UN Human Rights Council last week.
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The Sri Lankan army continued its intrusion into civilian life in the Tamil North-East, organising a volleyball camp in Mullaitivu last week.
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Officers from a Sri Lankan government department were injured in altercations in Mullaitivu this week, as they attempted to raid the homes of Tamil fishermen, accompanied by rival fishermen.
On February 13, officers from the Fisheries Department and members of fisheries organisations of Hijrapuram, Vadduvakal entered the homes of fishermen of Keppapulavu and searched them stating that there were banned fishing nets inside the houses. The party were accompanied by an armoured Special...
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Residents in Kiran demonstrated this week against the local authority's failure to stop illegal sand mining taking place in the region.
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As Tamils across the North-East and diaspora called for Sri Lanka to be referred to the International Criminal Court (ICC) to ensure justice for the genocide of 2009, Sri Lanka's prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe renewed talk of a truth and reconciliation commission.
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Eight people who were returned from Reunion Island this week after fleeing Sri Lanka by boat were detained and held in remand on Thursday by Negombo Magistrate's Court.
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The skeletal remains of another child were found on Thursday at the mass grave site in Mannar.
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A woman was hospitalised after being hit by a Sri Lankan army water tanker (bowser) in Jaffna on Friday evening.
Police seized the tanker and arrested the driver.
The incident happened in Kodikamam, Mirusuvil and the victim was taken to Jaffna Teaching Hospital for emergency treatment.
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Families of the disappeared in Vavuniya this week urged member states at the UN Human Rights Council not to grant Sri Lanka more time to implement the co-sponsored 30/1 resolution.
World News
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A number of prominent Indian rights activists have withdrawn support from Amnesty International over allegations of caste-based discrimination and harassment. These include Dalit rights activists, Radhika Vemula and Chandrasekhar Azad, as well as women’s rights campaigner Mariya Salim who had worked for Amnesty.
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After two days of talks, the warring parties in Yemen have finalised a deal on the first phase of the pullback of forces from the city of Hodeidah.
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Britain’s international relations select committee has published a damning report concluding that the UK’s arms sales to Saudi Arabia are unlawful and called for some sales to be halted.
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A suicide bombing in Kashmir killed almost 40 Indian policemen on Thursday, with India's prime minister pledging those behind the attack will pay a "very heavy price".
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The UN warned this week grains stored in the Red Sea Mills Silos in western Hodeida is at risk of rotting.
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Scott Morrison, Australia’s Prime Minister, has said that the Australian government would reopen its Christmas Island detention centre, after suffering a historic defeat in Parliament over a medical evacuations bill.
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The Cameroon government accuses separatists of setting a hospital on fire and killing four people.
In a press release, the Minister of Communication and government spokesperson Rene Sadi stated, "the fire incident in Kumba District Hospital was committed by close to 20 secessionists rebels”.
Separatists have rejected this assertion, stating on social media that they are "not responsible for the fire incident in the hospital”. They hold the government responsible and further...
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Amnesty International has found Myanmar’s forces are again shelling villages and blocking civilians from accessing food and humanitarian assistance in its battle against the Arakan Army, who are fighting for more autonomy in the Rakhine state.
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Tens of thousands of Spanish nationalists took to the streets in Madrid on Saturday ahead of a proposed meeting between Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and Catalan separatists.
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A hospital in the Venezuelan city of Barcelona has reported that 14 children have died due to an outbreak a form of dysentery this week, as the political crisis in the country continues with two men claiming to be the country’s rightful president.
Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro warned against US military intervention last week after US National Security Adviser John Bolton was pictured with a notepad signifying “5,000 thousand troops to Colombia”.
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Nepal on Wednesday extended its war crimes investigation for the third time, by passing an amendment on the Transitional Justice Act granting a one-year extension.
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A British parliamentary committee has called for an end to indefinite detention in immigration centres and for detention to be authorised independently of the Home Office.
According to the Guardian, around 27,000 people a year are detained in connection with immigration and are usually held without being given a date for release or deportation.
“Indefinite detention causes distress and anxiety. [It] can trigger mental illness and exacerbate mental health conditions,” a highly...
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There has been international outcry after a number of deaths of women who were banished to “menstruation huts” in Nepal.
This month, 21-year-old woman, from Nepal died after being banished to a “menstruation hut” during her period. The head of police in Doti district, Lala Bahadur Dhami, told reporters that she died of suffocation after making a fire to keep herself warm.
Parbati Bogati, had initially planned to spend the night on the ground floor of an abandoned house but had...
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French president, Emmanuel Macron, yesterday announced a day to remember the Armenian genocide, April 24
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A UN rights group has uncovered more than 50 mass graves in the western province of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mai Ndombe.
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Three separatist leaders from the Joint Resistance Leadership in Kashmir have called for a regional strike in protest at the Indian prime minister's visit on Sunday.
Narendra Modi's visit is the first since the BJP pulled out of the coalition government in Kashmir. Announcing new infrastructure projects, Modi warned he would "break the back" of terrorism in the area.
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A second round of internationally administered official talks between the Polisario Front and Morocco to solve the 43- year old political dispute on Western Sahara’s self-determination are set to take place next month, reports Al Jazeera.
The UN Special Envoy for Western Sahara, former German president Horst Koehler, told the United Nations that he planned to...
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Saudi Arabia has agreed to release seven Houthi rebel prisoners after a Saudi prisoner of war was released safely in Riyadh.
The release of Mousa Awaji, a Saudi soldier, was initiated by the Houthi rebels who stated they they did not have the adequate medical equipment to care for his ailments. The UN welcomed the transfer and hopes that this could lead to a ceasefire in Yemen.
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The United Nations’ refugee agency warned of a rise in xenophobic rhetoric in Europe, despite migrant arrivals to Europe reaching a four year low in 2018
The UN High Commission for Refugees said that populist European politicians had been upholding a harsh anti-immigration position despite numbers falling from the highest numbers since World War Two in 2015.
Filippo Grandi, Commissioner General of the UNHRC, added however that even if these politicians do gain power, they will...
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India has engaged in an increased crackdown on border crossings from Bangladesh leading to the arrest and deportation of dozens of Rohingya Muslims this year.
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A French court has rejected Chile’s request of extradition for a leftist militant, who was previously imprisoned over the assassination of an ally of Chile’s former dictator Augusto Pinochet.
Paris’s Court of Appeals refused to extradite Ricardo Palma Salamanca in a decision made on Wednesday, following France’s Office for the Protection of Refugees (Ofpra) granting Ricardo Palma Salamanca political asylum last November, despite pleas from Chile for his extradition.
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Yanghee Lee, a UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, publicly called for Myanmar’s army chief to be prosecuted for the Rohingya genocide, stating that holding perpetrators to account is vital before Rohingya refugees can return to Myanmar.
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A brutal crackdown continues in Zimbabwe this week after protests against the rise in the price of fuel and other basic commodities.
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An attack on a hotel complex, DusitD2, in Kenya’s capital, left 21 people dead, several injured and 50 unaccounted for last week, with a total of 700 people evacuated from the hotel complex.
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Israel has come under criticism for the opening of a new highway in the occupied West Bank, separating Palestinian and Israeli traffic between villages of Anata and Azzayim.
The newly opened route 4370, which Palestinians have dubbed as the “apartheid road”, segregates the road into two separate two way lanes with a high wall in the middle, topped with fencing. The western side allows Palestinians in the West Bank to go around Jerusalem while the eastern side allows Israeli settlers...
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President Erdogan stated Turkey is ready to create a 32 km (20-mile) deep safe zone alongside its border with Kurdish-held Syria, running along the border from Afrin to the western bank of the River Euphrates.
The announcement follows President Trump's threat that the US will "devastate Turkey economically” if they attacked the Kurdish separatist militia known as the People’s Protection Unit (YPG).
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Spain's deputy prime minister, Carmen Calvo, met with Catalan’s Vice President Pere Aragones and spokesperson, Elsa Artadi in Madrid on Thursday.
The meeting came a day after the detaining of 13 activists, a separatist mayor, and a journalist on Wednesday for allegedly disrupting a high-speed rail line on October 1, 2018, the anniversary of the independence referendum, which was rejected by Madrid as 'illegal'.
The Catalan government has insisted that these detentions were...
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Israeli authorities have handed a Palestinian family an eviction notice demanding they leave their home in Occupied East Jerusalem.
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Protests in Sudan calling for the resignation of President Bashir have resulted in the death of a doctor and a child.
Protests occurred in several cities across Sudan on Thursday but police were reported to have fired tear gas and live ammunition on demonstrates who tried to march on the presidential palace, in the capital, Khartoum.
The death of the doctor and child was first reported by the Sudan Doctors' Committee, a group linked to the opposition. The death has also since...
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The Afghan Taliban has warned the United States that it will withdraw from peace negotiations if they refuse to withdraw from Afghanistan, a central demand from the Islamist group throughout the 17 year conflict.
The warning comes a day after the Taliban reportedly attacked a compound in Kabul city killing five and wounding more than 110.