A total of 82 Indian fishermen were arrested and 18 of their trawlers have been seized by the Sri Lankan Navy, in another spate of arrests . The latest clash comes just days after Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa released 33 Indian fishermen from Sri Lanka custody, as a gesture of goodwill between the two countries. Previous releases have also been followed by further arrests, just days after. Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa, head of the third biggest party in India, has called on Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to take " strong and robust " stance against the arrests...
A case filed against Balendran Jeyakumari and her daughter Vipoosika, for allegedly sheltering a member of the LTTE, has been postponed after the presiding judge failed to appear in court. Disappearances campaigner Jeyakumari and her 13-year old daughter Vipoosika were both detained by the Sri Lankan security forces on the 13th of March 2014 at their home in Tharmapuram. Since then, Jeyakumari has been held at the infamous Boosa camp in the south of the island. Despite protests calling for their release, the Sri Lankan government has refused. See more from the Uthayan (in Tamil) here .
A Tamil man was attacked by unidentified men today, leading to his admission into Batticaloa Teaching Hospital. 28-year-old Paalippodi Gunaseelan was returning to his home in Kanjiran'guda Panaiyaruppan village, in Batticaloa, to find a group of unidentified men questioning his wife. The men, wearing motorcycle helmets, then attacked the victim using logs. He is currently being treated in hospital. The police say they are investigating this case further. See more from the Uthayan here . Also see our earlier post: Disabled former cadre attacked at her Kilinochchi home (04 June 2014)
A workshop aimed at training Tamil journalists from the North-East was shut down yesterday after mobs of protestors gathered outside the hotel that it was being held at , resulting in journalists and trainers having to evacuate the premises on grounds of a risk to safety, reports Sundaytimes.l k. Photo: @dushiyanthini The workshop was organised by Transparency International (TI) to help develop skills of Tamil speaking journalists. The mob of protestors carried placards claiming that they were protectors of the ‘motherland’ and demanded that the workshop, which was taking place in Colombo, be...
Delays in registration with the Sri Lankan Deputy High Commission in Chennai has resulted in 17000 Tamil children from the North-East of Sri Lanka being rendered stateless reported The Hindu . Registration is essential if Sri Lankan citizenship is to be granted to these children. The Hindu reported that a backlog of applications had been caused by the State government suspending a process that had been set up to help facilitate registration. Mobile camps in the Collectorates, which Deputy High Commission officials visited to collect applications, have now been put on hold due to a “...
Arrangements are underway to obtain over 1,400 acre of land in Kilinochchi, stated the government in Parliament on Thursday, as land grabbing by the state continues. 1,406.94 acres of land in Kilinochchi are to be seized, and distributed amongst 10 government organisations and to at least 3 private companies on long-term leases. The land to be given to the private companies has been evaluated at Rs. 17 million, stated the Land Development Ministry. However, the rest of the area is yet to be valued, with the government claiming that landowners will be compensated. The latest move comes amid...
Sri Lankan Minister Mervyn Silva has called on the Sinhalese people to reproduce as much as possible, in order to increase population numbers. Silva, Sri Lanka’s Public Relations Minister, was reportedly addressing a government function in Wattala, and stated , "The Sinhala race is rapidly becoming a minority and my only only request to the Sinhalese is to produce children as much as possible to avoid extinction of their race". The Sri Lankan government already offers cash incentives for the Sri Lankan Army, almost exclusively Sinhalese, to have extra children, having awarded over Rs. 700 million in payments so far. See more here . The Minister then went on to offer his services to the Sinhala people, adding, "There is no point in lamenting over this problem… If any woman has a problem in having children, I kindly request her to contact me for further assistance".
In the last game for the team at this tournament, Tamil Eelam defeated a weakened Darfur United by ten goals to nil. The Darfurians, all of whom live in a refugee camp in eastern Chad, started the game with 10 players, and as expected, Tamil Eelam controlled the game from the start.
The Sri Lankan government should abolish the 13th Amendment, said, a committee member of one of the two major Buddhist monasteries, the Asgiriya Chapter, reports Ceylon Today . “It (the 13th Amendment) has instead precipitated international pressure particularly form India, though force applied by South India. It has also given birth to the money guzzling Provincial Council system and caused disharmony among the different ethnic communities. We must as a country remain independent,” said the Buddisht monk Medagama Dhammanda Thera.
Work towards representing the Tamil community would not stop until there are international guarantees that the root causes of the conflict in Sri Lanka were addressed, concluded the spokesman of the Global Tamil Forum in a statement to The Island . “We believe only when justice is served and root causes for the military conflict are addressed permanently with international guarantees can the affected begin to consider moving on and a sustainable peace for all the island can be achieved,” he concluded. Surendiran added that there should be no reason for the government not to cooperate with the...