Tamils say they won’t resist removal
January 14 2010 – WA Today
Indonesia has denied it is planning to force ashore 240 Sri Lankan asylum seekers who have spent the past three months holed up on their boat in a Javan port.
While some senior officials are losing patience with the Tamils, Foreign Ministry spokesman Teuku Faizasyah on Thursday disputed reports Indonesia was planning to force them into immigration detention by the end of next week.
“We are focusing on how to get them to leave the boat with persuasion,” Faizasyah told AAP.
A Foreign Ministry-led taskforce set up to deal with the crisis had not made any decision to abandon the “persuasion approach” in favour of force, he said.
The Tamils, intercepted by the Indonesian navy at Australia’s request and taken to the Javan port of Merak in October, do not want to come ashore because they fear they will be forced to wait years for resettlement.
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Police search Sunday Leader
January 14 2010 – Daily Mirror
The Sunday Leader office located in Ratmalana was search by armed police officers who had come in a bus a short while ago. The police officers searched the printing press of the office saying they had information that defamatory posters were being printed at the premises.
However staff members at the office said that the police, which included the OIC of the Mt. Lavinia police, did not search the editorial section of the newspaper. The police had a search warrant.
The police had also videoed the printing press of the newspaper. Sunday Leader Editor Federica Janz confirmed to Daily Mirror that the Sunday Leader printing press was searched.
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Canadian Government drops secret detention hearings for migrant Tamils
January 14 2010 – The Globe and mail
All 76 of the Tamil boat people could be freed in the coming weeks
Less than a month after Ottawa announced that it would launch rare, secret hearings to argue for the continued incarceration of 25 Tamil migrants, the federal government has suddenly abandoned the plan.
Instead, a government lawyer told a meeting with the migrants’ lawyers yesterday that it will no longer argue for the continued detention of the migrant men, who arrived on a freighter last October claiming they were refugees fleeing postwar Sri Lanka.
The Canada Border Services Agency, the government body investigating the migrants, was unavailable for comment yesterday, however, a spokeswoman for the Immigration and Refugee Board confirmed that the applications were withdrawn.
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Sri Lankan editor is granted bail
A Sri Lankan journal editor jailed for 20 years has left prison for the first time since March 2008 after a court ordered him to be freed on bail.
JS Tissainayagam, a Tamil, won his liberty at the Court of Appeal on Wednesday morning. He denies publishing articles aimed at inciting violence.
His lawyer, MA Sumantharan, told the BBC that bail had been set at 50,000 Sri Lankan rupees ($440).
Mr Tissainayagam also had to surrender his passport.
Mr Sumantharan said he expected his client to remain out of prison until an appeal against his conviction is heard.
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Journalists under threat as Sri Lanka elections near
January 13 2010 – CPJ
As Sri Lanka’s media comes under increasing partisan pressure, the Committee to Protect Journalists calls on all sides contesting the January 26 general elections to respect the role of journalists in covering the campaign and voting process. CPJ notes with concern today’s assault on the BBC’s Sinhala service reporter who, according to Sri Lankan media reports, was hospitalized after a political mob, apparently linked to supporters of an agriculture minster, attacked her as she was covering the event.
Thakshila Dilrukshi was pursued by government supporters of Agriculture Minister Maithreepala Sirisena, who is also secretary general of the ruling Sri Lanka Freedom Party, and attacked with clubs. Her recording equipment and mobile phone were taken as well, according to the German News Agency DPA. CPJ is trying to confirm the extent of her injuries.
The media support and press freedom group Media Freedom in Sri Lanka told CPJ that election-monitoring networks have recorded hundreds of incidents of recent campaign-related violence.
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