The Sri Lankan government’s proposed Penal Code amendment on hate speech “directly contravenes” pledges made in a UN Human Rights Council resolution said the Tamil National Alliance, adding that it is “nearly identical” to the notorious Prevention of Terrorism Act used to target Tamils and Muslims.

Strongly opposing the amendment, the TNA stated the amendment is “nearly identical to Section 2(1)(h),” adding “the previous government used this very provision to target persons from the Tamil and Muslim communities and to deprive them of their freedom of speech and expression”.

The statement went on to recall the cases of Tamil journalist J.S. Tissainayagam and Muslim politician Asath Salley, both of whom were detained under Section 2(1)(h) of the PTA. “Both these persons were critical of the previous government’s policies, particularly with respect to the treatment of minority communities,” said the TNA. “These incidents and others like them prompted international condemnation of the previous government’s use of the PTA to suppress media freedom and dissent.”

Mr. Anton Balasingham, the chief negotiator of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and an extraordinary theoretician within the Tamil struggle, is remembered by Tamils across the world today.

His death at his home in London on 14 December 2006, a few weeks after being diagnosed with terminal cancer, shook the Tamil nation.

As over 50,000 Tamils across Britain, Europe and the diaspora came to pay their respects, and many thousands more marked his death in Canada and other diaspora centres across the world, tens of thousands of Tamils in the homeland attended memorial events in Kilinochchi and Mullaitheevu. It was a day of national grief.

Honouring his three decades of service to the Tamil struggle, the LTTE conferred the title 'Voice of the Nation'.

Crowds gather at Nallur as the first day of the commission began. Photographs: Tamil Guardian

Tamil families in Jaffna testified before Sri Lanka’s presidential commission into disappearances this week, pleading for information on their whereabouts of their missing loved ones.

The first phase of the sittings took place in Nallur where 235 complaints were filed, with proceedings continuing today.

The rights of Tamils as individuals and as a People have been violated over the course of time by successive Sri Lankan governments said the Northern Provincial Council Chief Minister CV Wigneswaran in his statement to mark World Human Rights Day.

Sri Lanka’s former Supreme Court judge, in his statement issued in Tamil and English, quoting article one of the United Nations Covenant on Civil and Political Rights said,

“The legitimate right of self-determination has been denied to the Tamils instead their right to equality, a central human right, has been violated throughout the period of Sri Lanka’s existence. The right to life of individual Tamils has been violated through extra-judicial killings in which the State and its agents actively participated. There has been no accountability for any of the killings that have taken place.”

On the right to liberty, Mr Wigneswaran added,

“Again a non-defeasible right stated in the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights continues to be violated with the incarceration of many hundreds of young Tamils detained without trial or deprived of proper hearings. Their continued imprisonment is a continuing violation of this important right by the Government of Sri Lanka.”

Welcoming the establishment of the International Day of Commemoration and Dignity of the Victims of the Crime of Genocide and drawing upon an Northern Provincial Council passed in February, the Chief minister of the predominantly Tamil Northern Province said,