The Eastern University Muslim students are trying to get transfers to other universities for security reasons following the claymore attack by the LTTE on January 31st 2007. Students outside of Batticaloa district are fearful after the incident and some have little experience of such incidents. What I could see after talking to the students was […]
Interview was taken from: Mrs. Gopalakrishnan Kalaivani, 33 years. On 31st of January 2007 Displaced from: Manalchenai, Muthur Trincomalee Place – Welfare Centre (Cultural Hall Refugee’s Camp, Trincomalee) On the day, when a suicide attack was attempt in Colombo Army Head Quarters (on chief Army Officer), there were a terrible Artillery Shelling and Multi Barrel […]
Editors note: A Sinhala version of this article, in the form of a PDF, can be found here. Armed struggle and media freedom Night of fifth of this month, was a sleepless night for us. Reason being that former journalist Lalith Seneviratne was abducted from his residence. That night, all of us tried our best […]
Personal vignettes, in Sinhala, aimed at stimulating our thinking on social justice, peace, political and economic issues. In this issue, I talk about the many sleepless nights as a media activist in a violent country and some observations on media freedom and the growing culture of abductions under the present regime. Download my full article […]
Two days before our independence tamasha, an event with deep significance and bearing for the independence, integrity and unity of this country took place. It is unfortunately a part of a series of connected incidents. On Friday 2 February, Mudiyapu Remedias, Attorney at Law and Legal Advisor to the National Human Rights Commission, (HRC) Jaffna […]
I was with some Tamil students, as a training course was winding down for the day, when news of the explosion at the BMICH reached us. The details of the incident were sketchy at first. Being Muslim, while I felt worried when I heard the news, and the BMICH being close to where we were, […]
A family man, and popular activist in Oddamavadi Aboobacker Ilyas (25) was targeted and fired upon by an unidentified gunman on Boundry Road, Oddamavadi. This incident happened around 5.15 am on 4th February. The gunmen used T56 weapon; 5 rounds were fired, and luckily A.B. Ilyas escaped from this attack. This is not the first […]
Originally published in Himal Southasian, February 2007. The undeclared Eelam War IV in Sri Lanka shows no signs of abating. The Ceasefire Agreement, whatever is left of it, is enervated and made more irrelevant daily. Violence in the north and the east increased dramatically in 2006. Thousands continue to be displaced – unable to return […]
The TMVP has given a request to the government to conduct eastern provincial council elections and before that to setup an interim council. Because most of the eastern province is now under the control of the government this becomes an important matter. The statement of TMVP that they are the only representatives of the Tamil […]
Regarding the blast right outside the Eastern University in Batticaloa Vantharumoolai at around 11.30am yesterday, about 15 km north of Batticaloa town, the information I have heard is that there were around 200 students inside the University when the blast occurred. The rest of the students, around 1100 had returned to their home districts such […]
Jaffna people are now paying a higher price for essential things than when they were taken through the land route and taxed by the LTTE. Now essential items are taken to Jaffna by ship and sold through the MPCS (Multipurpose Cooperative Society) for ration. The prices are higher than the marketprice when they were taxed […]
This from the FMM today: Internet facilities and 8,000 telephones cut off in Jaffna Peninsula The Free Media Movement (FMM) is deeply disturbed to learn that basic communications facilities to the Jaffna Peninsula have been blocked from 28th January 2007. Internet facilities and around 8,000 landline telephones of Sri Lanka Telecom (SLT) are dysfunctional to […]
My recent visits to the coastal village of Nalarua in the district of Kalutara, about 5 kilometres from Kalutara town, got me thinking about life in the south. 450 families live in that village. I spoke to eight men and seven women on a Tuesday morning. Religion-wise 97% of them were Buddhist, 2% Catholic and […]
42 people have surrended at the Human Rights Commission Jaffna office so far. They were facing death threats. HRC officials produced them before Jaffna Magistrate and the Magistrate ordered that they be sent to prison for their saftey. Some of them said that escaped while gunmen tried to kidnap them, while others gave statements that […]
I don’t know much about Burma, or Myanmar as it’s now known… but according to today’s Daily Mirror: The Myanmar (Burmese) government yesterday assured its support to Sri Lanka in the fight against terrorism and reaffirmed it would never allow any group or individual to use its territory to engage in any hostile activities against […]