Features

Features

Latest news from and about the homeland

File photograph: Karaitivu Beach (Gowshan Nandakumar) It was a quiet morning on 12 April 1985 when Karaitivu, a small coastal Tamil village in the Amparai district of Sri Lanka’s Eastern Province, was plunged into terror. As villagers prepared to celebrate the Tamil New Year, armed mobs - composed largely of Muslim men and backed by Sri Lankan security forces - descended upon the village and…

Tamil journalists sent threats of 'death punishment' in Batticaloa

A number of journalists from the Batticaloa district were issued death threats, with leaflets of their photographs circulated warning that they will soon be executed

‘Missing persons are actually dead’ - Sri Lankan president tells UN

Sri Lankan president Gotabaya Rajapaksa told the United Nations’ resident co-ordinator on the island that the thousands of forcibly disappeared and missing Tamils “are actually dead”, in a widely condemned declaration on Friday.

According to the official Sri Lankan president’s media division, Rajapaksa met with Hanaa Singer, where “he explained that these missing persons are actually dead”.

The statement will have caused widespread offence across the Tamil North-East, where families of the disappeared have been protesting on the roadside for over 1,000 days, demanding to know the fate of their loved ones.

HRW - Sri Lanka's human rights in grave peril

Gotabaya addressing military as Defence Secretary

In their annual global human rights report, Human Rights Watch (HRW), warns that Sri Lanka is in ‘great peril’ of losing ground since the election of Gotabaya Rajapaksa and subsequent appointment of several ministers who have credible human rights accusations against them.

Meenakshi Ganguly, HRW’s South Asia director stated on the matter;

Remembering Colonel Kittu

Thursday marked 27 years since the death of Sathasivam Krishnakumar alias Colonel Kittu, and nine other LTTE cadres, who committed suicide after being surrounded by Indian navy warships in 1993.

British lawmakers join Tamils in celebration of Pongal in Parliament

British parliamentarians from across the political spectrum joined the British Tamil community to celebrate the Tamil harvest festival of Thai Pongal, at events held at the Houses of Parliament this week.

Over two days of celebrations, parliamentarians joined local Tamils in traditional celebrations involving musical performances, speeches and generous servings of sweet pongal.

Sri Lanka to release soldier from prison for massacre of Tamils

The Sri Lankan government is reportedly set to release a soldier who was sentenced to death over the massacre of eight Tamil civilians, according to an opposition parliamentarian who applauded the move.

“Now we have got information that the government has taken measures to release 34 members of the intelligence and Sunil Ratnayake, as mentioned during the Gotabaya Rajapaksa election campaign,” said UNP MP Ajith Perera.

Brother, when the army caught me, I was only 17 years old.

S. Mahendran

Prison Number Y-13139 “G” Ward,

New Magazine Prison,

Borella Colombo-09.

September 16, 2007

 

Brother, even when I was 17, when I used to eat breakfast, I made rice balls out of the old rice, curd, sugar, salt and banana.

Brother, when the army caught me, I was only 17 years old. I’ve been in prison for 14 years now.

How many people have come here and gone? Nothing at all has changed.

Tamil political prisoner arrested as teenager dies after 26 years imprisonment

The longest serving Tamil political prisoner who was arrested at the age of 17 in 1993 has died.

Sellapillai Mahendran was arrested during a round-up in Batticaloa on September 27, 1993. Two years later, he was sentenced to 70 years in prison and life imprisonment based on a confession produced following a month of torture in detention. After appealing the conviction at Sri Lanka's Supreme Court, the 70-year sentence was reduced to 10 years but the life sentence was upheld.

While some sources claim that his 1995 conviction was in connection with the alleged killing of 600 police officers in the East - an incident which took place three years prior when Mahendran was aged just 14 - his family said that they were never told the reason for his conviction.

Still searching for justice - 14 years on from Trinco 5 killings

On this day 14 years ago, five Tamil students were summarily executed by Sri Lanka's Special Task Force, whilst they spent an afternoon on the beach in Trincomalee.

To date no one has been held accountable for the murder.

The case – known as the 'Trinco 5' – remains one of the highest profile killings in Sri Lanka to receive international attention, listed in 2014 by the then UN High Commissioner for Human Rights' report on the island as one of four ‘emblematic cases’ of the government's failure to ensure accountability and having been raised repeatedly in international forums.

Mullivaikkal survivor and daughter of disappeared achieves district top rank in A Level Commerce

A young Tamil woman whose family have been searching for their disappeared father since May 2009 has achieved top rank in the Mullaitivu district in this year’s GCE A Level Commerce results.

Yalini Ravichchandran whose father disappeared in the final phases of the armed conflict found out she had obtained the highest marks in the district earlier this week when A Level results were released.