Sri Lankan TID harasses ex-LTTE members in East

Sri Lankan TID harasses

 ex-LTTE members in East

[TamilNet, Thursday, 21 February 2013, 22:28 GMT]
Tension and fear continues to prevail among the families of former LTTE members, who have rejoined their families in the East, especially in Vaakarai in Batticaloa and in Moothoor East of Trincomalee district as the SL military thinks any resistance coming from the uprooted families that demand resettlement originates from people who were associated with the LTTE in the past. The SL TID squads have been visiting several houses in Kathirave'li and Puchchangkea'ni in Koa'ralaip-pattu North (Vaakarai) DS division in the Batticaloa collecting details of former LTTE members through Village level (GS) officers.

When the occupying SL State observed ‘independence day’ celebrations in Trincomalee, posters appeared in Trincomalee condemning the Sinhala celebration in the country of Eezham Tamils.

A Special team of ‘Terrorist Investigation Department’ in Colombo was dispatched to Moothoor East in Trincomalee and to Vaakarai in Batticaloa to monitor former LTTE members or those who voice for Tamil rights to be labelled as former LTTE members and harassed with SL ‘military rehabilitation’.

It was already reported that similar TID squads that arrived in Moothoor East had ‘arrested’ seven Tamil youths, sending them all for ‘military rehabilitation’. All of them are family members and two among them were from temporary sheds where uprooted Champoor families reside.

The uprooted families of Champoor have been demanding resettlement in their own village.

The arrested sent out of the district to a destination elsewhere and have been put on ‘military rehabilitation’.

Chronology:

21.02.13  Sri Lankan TID harasses ex-LTTE members in East

09.02.13  Uprooted Champoor families live in fear following ..

07.02.13  SL ‘Terrorist’ squad arrests 7 Tamils in Moothoor ..

24.01.13  SL military presence beefed up in Trincomalee

Sri Lanka Human Rights Commission distorts figures of missing persons

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 22 August 2012, 22:48 GMT]
The ‘Sri Lanka Human Rights Commission’, run by the Sri Lankan State in Colombo, has begun to conceal and twist the figures of complaints registered by its regional offices in the North and East. While announcing that a ‘high level’ delegation from Colombo is scheduled to visit Jaffna in the coming days to ‘investigate’ the registered complaints of missing persons since the year 2006, Mr. S. Kanagaraj, an official at the Jaffna office told media Wednesday that only 472 people were reported missing after the year 2006. However, informed human rights activists in Jaffna said that the office had registered 1,500 to 2,000 cases since 2006. There were at least 599 cases registered by the office in the year 2006 alone, they further said.

Between 1998 and 2001, more than 800 persons were reported missing in Jaffna peninsula under the occupying Sri Lanka Army. The SL HRC is silent about these cases.

Recently, there were 800 cases of persons who were missing in Vanni after the end of Vanni war in 2009. These details were also registered at the Jaffna office by the resettling people in Jaffna. The SL-HRC doesn't want to talk about these cases.

Usually, the SL-HRC office archives the complaints registered by the kith and kin of those reported missing. The office also seeks information from the SL military and files the response it receives from Palaali in the same file.

The people of Jaffna, who use to register the details of the missing for the sake of the record, have no faith in the follow-up work done by Colombo's mechanism of SL Human Rights Commission, human rights activists in Jaffna told TamilNet.

The latest twist from the Jaffna office is that there has been ‘no response’ from the families of the missing to a questionnaire it had posted to them in advance.

In the meantime, some of the families of the missing persons have left the island seeking asylum after 2006, the rights activists said.

There are also parents who are afraid of actively engaging in the search for their missing family members. Especially, parents having other young members in their families are cautious of not provoking the Sri Lankan military intelligence.

The SL Human Rights Commission is financially dependent on the genocidal State of Sri Lanka. The SL President, who is also the Commander-in-Chief of the SL armed forces, appoints the commissioners of the outfit.

in 2007 itself, the Human Rights Watch (HRW) criticised the composition of the SL-HRC that the SL president had personally appointed five commissioners to the outfit in violation of article 41B of the Sri Lankan constitution.

Tamils in UK condemn Sri Lankan presence at Olympics opening ceremony

[TamilNet, Friday, 27 July 2012, 23:51 GMT] Protesting against the participation of Sri Lankan sportspersons and the presence of the Sri Lankan delegation for the 2012 London Olympics, Eezham Tamils in the UK gathered in hundreds at Aspen Way, London on Friday, expressing their opposition to the legitimacy given to the Sri Lankan state that is accused of committing genocide. Sources in London, citing the British police, said that the Sri Lankan delegation did not attend the opening ceremony out of choice. However, the delegation invited by the IOC, were not compelled by the UK authorities not to attend. Speaking to TamilNet, Sasithar Maheswaran from the TCC-UK said “The British government ought to take note of the sentiments expressed repeatedly by the Tamils on the streets. An EU wide travel ban against current and previous leaders who have committed the crime of genocide against the Eezham Tamils is long overdue.”

Hunger strike location at Stratford

Protestors going towards entrance of Olympic Park

Protestors along Aspen Way

“While these protests show that the UK allows freedom of speech and right to demonstrate, their repeated occurrences with respect to the credibility given to Sri Lanka also highlight UK’s disregard for the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide,” he added.

Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s presence in London was rumoured, but not confirmed.

Another protest happened near Marshgate lane, near the main entrance to the Olympics Park. However, the demonstrators had to assemble 200 yards before the promised venue as the police prevented them citing security reasons.

Tamils also gathered at the site in Stratford where Gobi Sivanthan is entering his 6th day of hunger strike, to convey solidarity with the youth activist’s protest.

Sivanthan, who has undertaken the hunger strike with five demands with special attention to the “ongoing genocidal land grabs”, called for a UN referendum among the Eezham Tamils as a nation to exercise sovereignty over their homeland.

“Eezham Tamils are denied their rightful place in global celebrations such as the Olympics because a self-serving world order is determined to assist the Sinhala nation to commit the ultimate crime of genocide against us,” Sivanthan told TamilNet.

Separately, conveying solidarity with Sivanthan's demands and remembering Black July, a demonstration was also held at Lausanne in Switzerland on Friday.

Chronology:

27.07.12  Tamils in UK condemn Sri Lankan presence at Olympi..

22.07.12  Fasting in London against genocidal Sri Lanka time..