• Youth Tamil footballer to train with top English Footballing Association scouts

    Dec 13
    A young Tamil footballer from Ilford, will have the opportunity to train with Premier League talent scouts after winning a national football competition last month.

    After being ranked first out of over 500 footballing applicants in the under-16 category, Raj Vijayarajah, will be given the chance to train at the English Football Association’s St George’s Centre of Excellence.
  • 10 German Tamils receive suspended sentences for funding LTTE

    A court in Berlin has convicted ten Tamils for "supporting a terrorist organisation" and has given them suspended jail sentences lasting between 6 and 22 months.

    The eight men and two women, aged between 32 and 60, were found guilty of financially supporting the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, by collecting donations between August 2007 and March 2009.

    The judges said the accused suffered violence and discrimination in their homeland and that they "primarily wanted to support humanitarian efforts, but were aware that funds could be used for criminal activities."

    The federal government in Germany has recently increased monitoring of Tamils, at the behest of the Sri Lankan High Commission in Berlin, a Tamil activist told the Tamil Guardian.

  • MoD to rebuild house of military 'war hero'
    The Ministry of Defence (MoD) announced on Friday that it would rebuild the house of a DH Suranga Dharmarathne, who fought for the Sri Lanka Special Task Force (STF).

    The MoD Seva Vanitha Unit (SVU) has been responsible for housin

  • Presidential candidates reject EU election monitors
    EU monitors will not be present at Sri Lanka's upcoming presidential election, after their inclusion was rejected by four presidential candidates, reports the Sunday Leader.

    The paper quoted the election commissioner, Mahinda Deshapriya, as saying that "he can only invite election monitors from the unions or forums only if the Department of Election or the country holds memberships of those unions."

    “Four presidential candidates disagreed to invite the election monitors from the EU. Therefore, we will not be able to call upon the election monitors from the EU,” he reportedly added.

    Last week, local election monitoring groups - The People’s Action for Free and Fair Elections (PAFFREL), Centre for Monitoring Election Violence (CMEV), Transparency International Sri Lanka (TISL), the Campaign for Free and Elections (CaFFE), Movement for Free and Fair Elections (MFFE), Mothers and Daughters of Lanka (MDL) and the National Polls Observation Centre (NPOC) - called candidates to ensure the elections took place free off violence.

  • Yet another international name to domestic probe ahead of OISL report
    The government of Sri Lanka added yet another international name to its domestic inquiry ahead of the publishing of the UN inquiry's report on mass atrocities against the Tamil people in March 2015.

    Mahinda Rajapaksa appointed a former international judge of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, Motoo Noguchi from Japan to the country's 'Presidential Commission to Investigate into Complaints Regarding Missing Person', reports Colombo Page.

    Motoo is the seventh international expert to be appointed to the domestic probe. The probe's chair has already made clear that the experts have only been included in an advisory capacity.

  • UK says trade with Sri Lanka goes 'hand in hand' with human rights
    The British government continued to call on Sri Lanka to co-operate with a United Nations investigation into mass atrocities on the island and stated that the UK's trade with Sri Lanka goes “hand in hand” with its commitment to human rights.

    Speaking during a debate in the House of Lords on Thursday, Lord Livingston, the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills & Foreign and Commonwealth Office, said,
    “Trade is important not only to the prosperity of the UK but to Sri Lanka and its people. However, the UK’s commitment to free trade goes hand in hand with our commitment to human rights. That point has been made volubly.”
    “We continue to urge Sri Lanka to co-operate and ensure the protection of those providing evidence to the investigation, and to implement the recommendation of its own internal commission on resettlement and rehabilitation.”
    The question of whether the British government would deploy sanctions against Sri Lanka was raised during the debate, with Lord Livingston saying,
    “The UK Government’s position on this is that it is premature to do anything more prior to the UN reporting on the matter, and we are expecting the UN’s report in March 2015. When we receive it, it will be appropriate for the Government to take a view of which, if any, of those recommendations should be taken up.”
  • Tamil man returns home after 25 years in detention
    A Tamil man, who was assumed to be dead, returned to his home in Jaffna on Friday, after being detained without charge for 25 years in a Sri Lankan detention centre.

    S. Vairavanathan was arrested in Colombo after a bomb blast in 1990. He was 28 years old at the time. Following his arrest, Vairavanathan was held in a detention camp in Hambantota for 25 years without being charged.
  • SL Air Force plane crash kills 4 officers
    A Sri Lankan military plane crashed near the capital city of Colombo on Friday morning killing four officers and injuring one more.

    The Antonov-32, a plane purchased from Ukraine in 1996 and repaired in Russia last year, crashed on route from Katunayake to Ratmalana in the island's south.
  • Sri Lanka trade deficit widens by 141.7 percent
    Sri Lanka’s trade deficit widened by 141.7 percent over the past year, the Central Bank said in its External Sector Performance review released on Friday.

    The trade deficit in October 2014 widened to US $851.7 million compared to US$ 353.3 million in October 2013.
  • Senior JHU official joins Mahinda camp

    The deputy general secretary of the Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU) has declared his support for incumbent, President Mahinda Rajapaksa at the presidential election next month.

    Speaking at the SLFP headquarters earlier today, Udaya Gammanpila said he could not support the attempts by the UNP to regain power as he feels they will divide the country.

    Gammanpila said he will resign from the JHU and join Rajapaksa’s SLFP as he could not support some of the pledges made by the common opposition candidate Maithripala Sirisena.

  • ICC ‘enquired about army’s command chain’ warns Rajapaksa

    Sri Lanka’s President Mahinda Rajapaksa has claimed that the International Criminal Court (ICC) has asked about the chain of command in the Sri Lankan armed forces.

    Speaking at his first election rally in Anuradhapura, Rajapaksa said this gave a “strong indication” that some sections of the international community were attempting to prosecute officials in Sri Lanka’s military.

    Rajapaksa will face the opposition candidate Maithripala Sirisena at the presidential election next month and both camps have used the rejection of the international probe into war crimes as a key tenet of their campaign.

    The president said he would never allow any member of the security forces to be taken to the ICC.

    "Sri Lankan government will not bow down for foreign interventions in the matter of the war victory," Rajapaksa said, adding that he will not permit a “foreign force” to jeopardise the political stability in Sri Lanka.

  • SL Navy arrests 27 Tamil Nadu fishermen
    The Sri Lankan navy arrested 27 fishermen from Tamil Nadu on Wednesday night, on alleged poaching charges, reports DNA Analysis.

    The 27 were arrested along with six boats. According to the Assistant Director of Fisheries Department, Sekar, the Sri Lankan navy personnel destroyed the fishermen's nets.
  • Buddhist monks invoke blessings for Sri Lanka 'war heroes'


    Over 300 Buddhist monks came together to invoke blessings for the Sri Lankan army, air force and navy, at a meeting attended by the Defence Secretary, Gotabaya Rajapaksa on Wednesday.

  • Sirisena denies pact with TNA amid reports of private endorsement
    The common opposition presidential candidate, Maithripala Sirisena, this week denied that he had entered any pact with the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), as both sides attempted to distance themselves from the Tamil political party ahead of the election on January 8.

    "We signed only one agreement at the Viharamahadevi Park and all other understandings are based on it," Sirisena told media heads, adding that he had not signed any individual agreements. Stating that he had met with members of the TNA to discuss the election, Sirisena stressed that no pact had been made.

    Reports of the TNA leadership having decided to endorse the common opposition candidate continued on Thursday however, with sources close to the TNA leadership stating that the party's endorsement of Sirisena was deliberately being kept private.

    "The TNA will only go public about their support of Sirisena 2-3 days before the election," a source told the Tamil Guardian on Thursday evening.

    "A Sirisena-TNA pact would mean the Sinhalese will vote for Mahinda, like they did last time," he added. 

  • Rape, land grabs and militarisation destroying Tamil life in North-East - Chief Minister
    The Tamil people in the North-East face genocide the Northern Provincial Council Chief Minister warned that Tamils face genocide, at a youth conference in Jaffna on Wednesday, the Uthayan reports.

    Speaking at the Weerasingham hall in Jaffna, despite military attempts to stop youth from attending the conference, CV Wigneswaran said, that rape, sexual assaults, land grabs, and military interference in the economy were destroying the everyday lives of Tamil people in the North-East.  

    Condemning the state destruction of Tamil identity, he added that religious and cultural sites for Tamils in the North-East were being destroyed and replaced by religious sites. The new religous sites were only relevant to the military that was stationed in the area, added the chief minister.

    Commenting on allegations that he had prevented the Northern Provincial Council from passing a resolution calling for an end to the genocide of Tamils, the Northern Provincial Council Chief Minister, said,

    "I was accused of preventing NPC members from passing a motion regarding genocide, but the reason for that is not that I deny that it is happening."

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