News

The United States has delivered a demarche to Sri Lanka that it wants the final report of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) discussed at the 19th sessions of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva in March next year.A demarche is a formal diplomatic stand of one government’s official position, views and wishes […]

by Chandani KirindeTamil National Alliance (TNA) Parliamentary Group Leader Rajavarothiam Sampanthan spoke to the Sunday Times after his Party secured a landslide victory in the local government elections in the North, despite widespread use of state power by the ruling party that pulled out all stops to secure a win there.Mr. Sampanthan said the Government […]

We are facing perhaps one of the gravest challenges since the Indian challenge to us which culminated in the 1987 Indo-Sri Lanka Accord. There has been the cumulative impact of the panel of experts’ report of the UN secretary general, the Channel 4 documentary and The Cage by Gordon Weiss.An Interview with Jayantha Dhanapala by […]

By Manjula FERNANDOA fearless critic of LTTE atrocities, the leader of Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) Veerasingham Anandasangaree has spent most of his days, during the LTTE’s bloody years, behind closed doors of his tightly secured house in Colombo.A veteran Tamil politician who took to politics in 1950s and entered Parliament contesting Kilinochchi district in […]

by D.B.S. Jeyaraj Gnanasundaram Kuhanathan, News Editor of Tamil Daily”Uthayan” was attacked with iron rods in Jaffna by 2 thugs suspected to be from the EPDP59 year old Kuhanathan was admitted to the Jaffna hospital&is undergoing intensive treatment for serious head injuries caused by the assaultThe attack occurred around 7.30 pm on July 28th near […]

Indian Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao said Sri Lanka has to look into war crimes allegations carefully.In an interview with Headlines Today, on her last day in office, the United States ambassador designate was queried on allegations of human rights violations in Sri Lanka and the controversial Channel 4 video amongst other topics.Asked about a Channel […]

 Karat with Suresh Premachandran  CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat on Saturday made a strong case for demilitarisation and ending of emergency laws and regime in the North and East of Sri Lanka, saying the failure of Colombo to dismantle the military regime and apparatus was hindrance to a political solution. “The security architecture […]

The latest attack on the news editor of the Jaffna-based Uthayan newspaper, Gnanasundaram Kuhanathan should not be understood merely as an isolated attack on media freedom and freedom of speech in Sri Lanka. It undoubtedly bears far reaching implications and reveals the vicious nature of the renewed and accelerated violent attacks on democratic rights of […]

Nearly three thousand acres in Thiriyaay, a traditional Tamil village, located about 42 km off north of Trincomalee town have been earmarked to be declared as sacred area for a Buddhist Vihare called Girihandu Seya. The Vihare caters exclusively for Sinhala Buddhists from the south of Sri Lanka.Trincomalee district parliamentarian Mr.R.Sampanthan has written to the […]

By Mel Gunasekera  An ethnic Tamil journalist in Sri Lanka’s formerly embattled north was brutally attacked with iron bars, police said on Saturday, the latest in a string of assaults on the nation’s media.Gnanasundaram Kuhanathan, news editor of the Tamil-language daily Uthayan, was attacked by a gang of men wielding iron bars on Friday near […]

The attack on the editor of ‘Udayan’ newspaper is not only an issue regarding media freedom. It is an issue regarding national unity; an issue regarding the right to live freely; an issue regarding the freedom of expression and it is also an issue regarding democracy states a communiqué issued by the Political Bureau of […]

 by UN News Centre The United Nations human rights office today called for the swift investigation and prosecution of the killers of a prominent human rights defender whose body is believed to have been found, 17 months after he disappeared.A body exhumed yesterday in Sri Lanka is thought to be that of Pattani Razeek, the […]

Mano Ganesan tells Mahinda DeshapriyaEnthusiasm shown by your department in removing the names of those who left the country in Jaffna district is not equally shown in adding new names and fixing the disparities in the registers. This attitude is very much reflected on the Tamil population of this country. There are near 300,000 eligible […]

Orders have been issued by Sri Lanka president Mahinda Rajapaksa and by his sibling Basil Rajapaksa to colonial governor Maj. Gen. Chandrasri for immediate and full-swing replacement of Tamil civil service in the north. The act may superficially look as a revenge for the defeat in the civic elections, but it is actually aimed to […]

 CPI secretary and Rajya Sabha member D. Raja has asked the Central government to stop financial aid to Sri Lanka and demand inquiry in International Court of Justice against the atrocities committed on Sri Lankan Tamils by that government.Addressing a meeting here on Friday as part of a nationwide campaign by CPI to express solidarity […]

The news editor of Udayan newspaper in Jaffna is said to be in serious condition following an assault this evening (July 29). Two men armed with iron clubs had ambushed Gnanasundaram Kuhanathan , 55, in a motorcycle as he was returning home from work. He has been admitted to the ICU of Jaffna Hospital with […]

TNA MP M.A. Sumanthiran’s call for a change of attitude on the part of the Tamil Diaspora in the West on the question of the TNA engaging with the Lankan state on working out a solution to the conflict is most timely and we hope it would be given some consideration. Besides, the MP has […]

An agitation demanding the government to release Tamil political prisoners was held opposite the Fort Railway altStation yesterday (28th). The agitation had been organized by the Socialist Youth Union (SYU).SYU organized several programmes on behalf of national unity to celebrate the ‘Fraternal Day’ that falls on 23rd July, every year. The agitation demanding the release […]

This morning,(28, July) the police exhumed the remains of the body suspected to be of disappeared human rights activist , Pattani Razeek, who was the Managing Trustee of Community Trust Fund (CTF) and Executive Committee member of FORUM-ASIA, and disappeared on 11th February 2011.Based on information provided by one of the arrested suspects, Mr. Ismail […]

Dr.P.SravanamuttuThe results of the second phase of the 2011 local government elections reveal a north/ south divide with the ruling UPFA winning comfortably outside of the north and east and the TNA capturing the overwhelming majority of local bodies in those areas.  These results need serious analysis by all political parties as an indication of […]

Northern province director of education Vigneswaran has been sent on compulsory leave.He has been told by the provincial education secretary Ilangovan yesterday (July 27) that he was to be sent on compulsory leave by the province’s governor.Meanwhile, state officials over 60 years of age are to be removed from service in the North, reports said. […]

Sri Lanka is to remove controversial emergency laws by the end of this year, Xinhua news agency reported quoting a minister as saying Thursday.Media Minister Keheliya Rambukwella said that several clauses of the emergency laws have already been removed.“President Mahinda Rajapaksa does not want the emergency laws. We have already removed several clauses and my […]

The decision taken to reduce the number of parliamentary seats allocated to the Jaffna electorate from ten to six is an unfair one, Spokesman for the Tamil National Alliance Suresh Premachandra stated. The Elections Department earlier today stated that it may reduce the number of allocated seats for the Jaffna electorate to six in view […]

 ”For this one needs to operate within a political framework of democracy and individual freedoms and the free and full participation of all citizens in the development process.  In the absence of this, government would soon deteriorate into dictatorship or anarchy and development into a farce, enacted to further the ends of a powerful few.”by […]

 Yoshitha Rajapaksa’s Carlton Sports Network (CSN) is fixing transmitters on the Sri Lanka Navy’s transmission tower at Piduruthalagala inorder to broadcast the matches between Sri Lanka and Australia to be played next month, an official from Sri Lanka Rupavahini Corporation (SLRC) said.It has been decided to fix transmitters on the Navy tower after the media […]

Prominent women’s rights activists in India in a statement this week said that they had stopped believing in Colombo’s periodic pledges to bring about reconciliation in the country, reports Indian Express. “We no longer believe the empty promises of the Sri Lankan government to bring peace and reconciliation, and strongly demand immediate action that will […]

Louise Arbour,As South Africa knows better than most, a country cannot begin to overcome decades of internal conflict without a sustained effort at revealing the truth of the past and a committed push for reconciliation. If only Sri Lanka could learn that lesson.It has been more than two years since the Sri Lankan military defeated […]

The TNA demands Q:    The Tamil National Alliance(TNA) which secured 18 local councils yesterday insists on the devolution of police and land powers without which they claim a political solution could not be reached, emphasizing that ‘lasting peace, justice and democracy’ in the North depends on such devolution. Then the President has a bigger mandate […]

NCC president K V Thangkabalu today appealed to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to ensure that those responsible for alleged war crimes in Sri Lanka against Tamil civilians during the last phase of the offensive against the LTTE in Sri Lanka faced action. Calling on the Prime Minister at his residence in Delhi, Thangkabalu referred to […]

R. K. RadhakrishnanSri Lankan voters walk to polling stations as a policeman stands guard in Jaffna on July 23, 2011. The Tamil National Alliance (TNA), the umbrella organisation of Tamil political parties, recorded convincing victories in local body elections in Sri Lanka’s north and east.AP Sri Lankan voters walk to polling stations as a policeman […]