An Australian activist was detained during a raid by immigration authorities on a meeting of journalists on Wednesday. Jacqui Park, the Asia-Pacific representative for the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), was accused of working without a visa. "She was meeting with us at a hotel in Colombo while on holiday," said the Free Media Movement’s spokesperson Sunil Jayasekera to AFP . "She was not engaging in any work as such, but was meeting with friends she had made over the years."
NPC Chief Minister CV Wigneswaran said it was unlikely that he would attend the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Colombo, according to Sri Lanka’s Financial Times . “I do not think I will be going,” Wigneswaran said. “I will ask the TNA to advise me on whether or not to attend CHOGM. I will go along with the party’s decision,” Wigneswaran said to the FT that he had not received an official invitation from the government. He expressed gratitude to the support shown by Tamil Nadu, but refused to back their call for a boycott of the summit by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. “Who...
Issuing the report of the Commonwealth Observer Mission to Sri Lanka’s Northern provincial Elections, Commonwealth Secretary-general Kamalesh Sharma, commended the Sri Lankan state’s running of the Northern Provincial council elections. Expressing satisfaction over the post-election environment, Sharma said , “The post-results environment was also peaceful and for this, we commend the leadership of participating political parties.” Sharma also expressed importance of the pre-electoral environment, stating, “An election is a process not an event. The pre-electoral environment is vital to its...
Writing an opinion about ‘Forgotten heroes of the Eelam war’ for the Weekend Leader, political researcher and member of Tamils Against Genocide (TAG), Sinthujan Varatharajah, outlined the reasons behind the organisation’s forthcoming report, “Silencing the Press: An analysis of Violence against the Media in Sri Lanka.” Sinthujan Varatharajah, works as a London based researcher at Euro-Islam.info and teaching assistant at the University College London (UCL) Political Geography Department. Extracts have been reproduced below. See here for the full piece. "The last period of the war in Sri Lanka...
Sri Lankan government attempts to demolish Tamil places of residence caused commotion today as Northern Provincial Tamil Parliamentarians protested the destruction. According to journalists on the ground, the Tamil Parliamentarians were rounded up by the Sri Lankan military, and threatened at gunpoint. Sri Lankan military Brigadier Nishanka, later returned to the site and threatened journalists with harsh reprisals for reporting the incident. Addressing the journalists, he allegedly said , “I know every one of you who came here, if any of these pictures show up on the internet then you will...
Sri Lankan president, Mahinda Rajapaksa, today reiterated that increasing demands for the removal of army camps from the North-East, would never become a reality. Inaugurating the 23rd graduation ceremony of the Sri John, Kothalawala Defence University (KDU), Rajapaksa outlined that the Sri Lankan defence sector should share their experience of the victory over terror with other countries, and reiterated that security forces were essential to safeguard democracy. Noting prevalent calls for removal of troops from the North-East, Rajapaksa, said , “There are demands that we remove the troops...
Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa labelled Facebook a 'plague' which was affecting the younger generation, at a speech given at a school in the south of the island, earlier this month. Despite this, the ruling government have refused to state whether they will ban Facebook, after it was brought up in the Sri Lankan parliament by UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe. Meanwhile, Mahinda Rajapaksa's official Facebook page, with over 178,000 likes, has continued to post regularly. See it here .
A thirty-year-old Hindu temple in the Central Provincial town of Dambulla, was demolished overnight reports Colombo Telegraph. The shrine to Badhrakaali Amman was razed to the ground, despite appeals made to the President by Tamil politicians, and joins a long list of non-Buddhist places of worship that have come under attack. Western Provincial Councillor N Kumar Guruparan, who had personally taken up the matter said: "There is a group of Buddhist fundamentalists eager to change the history of Tamils and Hindus and Muslims in Dambulla."
The third documentary by Director Callum Macrae about the final months of the armed conflict in Sri Lanka, No Fire Zone , will be screened on British television by Channel 4 on Sunday at 22:50. Macrae, who was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize for his movies on the conflict, announced the broadcast at a panel discussion on Sri Lanka in Parliament last week, saying that there would be new, previously unseen material. TimeOut magazine’s Phil Harrison reviewed the documentary for this week’s issue and awarded it five stars. “ To their eternal credit, C4 News have worried away at this horrendous...
The Tamil Nadu Chief Minister has written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh,calling on him to 'unequivocally condemn' an attack on Indian fishermen by the Sri Lankan Navy on Sunday. According to reports, the Navy fired on 6 fishermen from Tamil Nadu, without warning. In her letter to the Prime Minister Jayalalithaa said, "This unwarranted, ruthless and inhuman attack on innocent fishermen belonging to Tamil Nadu who were peacefully pursuing their traditional avocation has caused immense outrage and frustration amongst the fishermen community in Tamil Nadu," “This incident needs to be taken...