A celebration at a church in the High Security Zone in Palali has been facilitated by the Sri Lankan Army, after a request by a priest, reported the army’s Jaffna command website.

Over 500 people are reported to have attended the centenary celebrations of St James’ Church, which lies within the militarised High Security Zone around Palali South.

Permission to enter the HSZ was granted by Jaffna Commander Major General Udaya Perera after a request by Fr. Anton Bala of St. Joseph’s church in Atchuvely.

Marking the 31st anniversary of Black July, an anti-Tamil pogram that saw over 3000 Tamils killed by state-sponsored Sinhala mobs, the US based advocacy group, USTPAC, stressed that violence against Tamils continues in the North-East where Tamils live under occupation.

“Black July was a watershed event that signaled to the Tamils that they would have only a subservient place in a Sri Lanka ruled by the majority Sinhala Buddhists, for their exclusive benefit,” said USTPAC President, Dr Karunyan Arulanantham.

"Tamil lands are expropriated, Tamils are denied the right to mourn their dead, Tamil children and women are raped with impunity, all while an ex-military governor appointed by the president holds executive authority and the largest military per capita in Asia is stationed in the traditional Tamil homelands," he added.
 

Sri Lanka’s navy has arrested 50 fishermen and seized seven trawlers from Tamil Nadu off the coast of Jaffna, accusing them of poaching in Sri Lankan waters.

There are already 38 Indian fishermen and 55 trawlers in Sri Lankan custody, according to The Hindu.

Chief Minister Jayalalithaa last week called on Prime Minister Modi to secure the release of the fishermen describing it as a "deliberate strategy of the Sri Lankan government to destroy the primary means of livelihood of Indian fishermen."

The Jaffna Press Club “strongly condemns” the treatment meted out by the military to Tamil journalists, travelling to a work shop in Colombo, and accused the Sri Lankan security forces of deliberately placing marijuana in the vehicle they were travelling in.

In a statement, the group said that Sri Lanka is “committed to preventing journalists from the North from fostering a relationship with journalists in the south in every way [and] repressing them by any means available”.

“On one hand, as the Sri Lankan government is trying to portray the journalists of the [Jaffna] peninsula as terrorists, on the other, it is taking measures to ensure their circle of contacts does not widen,” the statement charged.

The statement described how the journalists were followed by vehicles, from Jaffna, before being stopped at Maankulam and Omanthai, by members of the police and the military.

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa has written to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi calling for decisive action over the arrests of Indian fishermen by Sri Lankan authorities, as dozens more fishermen were detained this week.

The Sri Lankan Navy arrested 50 Indian fishermen for poaching in Sri Lankan waters on Tuesday reported Xinhua, following the arrest of a further 38 fishermen on July 22nd.

Sri Lankan authorities have allowed Buddhists monks to operate with impunity in attacking places of worship across the island and continued to build Buddhist shrines in the Tamil North-East, said the United States in a report released this week.

The US State Department, in their International Religious Freedom Report for 2013, stated that Sri Lanka had “failed to prevent the destruction of a Hindu temple in Dambulla and an attack on the Grandpass Mosque in Colombo”, adding that,

The US embassy in Colombo has expressed “grave concern” about the intimidation by Sri Lankan security forces of journalists, covering the court proceedings related to the gang rape of an 11-year old Tamil school girl by Sri Lankan Navy personnel in Jaffna.

In a statement released on Monday, the embassy also said it was deeply concerned about the cancellation of a training session for Tamil journalists, which was financially supported by the US embassy, after protests hit the venue in Colombo.

The US said that “well-organised protestors” disrupted the third such event since May, threatening to harm the participants, and accused the Sri Lankan police of not providing security to the threatened journalists, or taking action against the groups making the threats, despite their presence during the incidents.