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An affidavit containing the personal testimony of Dr Manoharan, the father of Ragihar, one of the five high school students shot dead in execution style in Trincomalee beach nearly four years ago by members of Sri Lanka security forces, and two detailed reports of evidence collected on the killings by a Rights Group whose members are in self-exile due to threat to their lives, were submitted as record of evidence to the Dublin war-crimes tribunal hearing concluded on the 16th of this month, US-based pressure group Tamils Against Genocide (TAG) said Tuesday

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A court in Sri Lanka has ordered police to release five Tamil doctors who served in the battle zone during the last stages of war, if no evidence is found against them.
 
Colombo magistrates court also ordered the police Criminal Investigation Division (CID) to speed up the investigations that has already taken more than eight months.

The doctors who worked in Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu districts; T Satyamurthy, V Shanmugarajah, T Vardharajah, Ilanchelian Vallavan and N Ketheesh appeared before the court on Monday.

International and local media had to rely on these doctors serving patients in the war zone in a time where journalists and international organisations were banned from entering the area.

The doctors are accused by the government of providing false information on casualty figures to international media.

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Dublin war-crimes tribunal, conducted by Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal (PPT) based in Milan, which held hearings on Thursday and Friday on war-crime charges on Sri Lanka from eye-witnesses and other material evidence, in the preliminary findings issued Saturday said, Sri Lanka Government is “guilty of War-Crimes” and “guilty of Crimes Against Humanity.” The tribunal also concluded that the charge of Genocide requires further investigations. Eye witnesses included several escapees from the final week of Sri Lanka offensive in the Mullaitivu “No Fire Zone” where more than 20,000 Tamil civilians were allegedly slaughtered by Sri Lanka Army (SLA) training heavy weapons on them.

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If the statement of Lalith Weeratunga, a top aide to Sri Lanka’s President Mahinda Rajapakse, that Sri Lanka’s use of heavy weapons was eventually stopped as part of a political deal with the Indian government, was true, “then it proves India’s complicity in the GOSL’s [Government of Sri Lanka's] genocide against the Tamils,” says Professor Boyle, expert in International Law in a note sent to TamilNet. “The Government of India temporarily stopped the GOSL’s genocide against the Tamils, thus proving it could do so…. India therefore violated its obligation under article 1 of the Genocide Convention “to prevent” the GOSL genocide against the Tamils,” asserts Prof. Boyle.

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Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapakse who arrived in Jaffna Sunday on his re-election campaign failed to make any important announcement in matters regarding youths gone missing after arrest, the immediate resettlement of IDPs in Sri Lanka Army (SLA) High Security Zones (HSZs), and a solution to the ethnic issue, sources in Jaffna said. Government supporters in Jaffna and political leaders from the South had informed the local media that Mahinda Rajapakse will announce positive decisions in these pressing issues, but the speech delivered at Jaffna Duraippah Stadium Sunday side-stepped all issues of immediate interest to the people in Jaffna. At Aa’riyaku’lam Rajapakse was angered when protesting students shouted that they will never vote for him besides shouting “go home”, journalists who covered the visit said.

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A wave of anti immigration sentiment sparked by Australia’s collaboration with Sri Lanka & Indonesia to detain Tamil asylum seekers travelling on boat has swept like a “virus” across Asia charged Bill Frelick, Refugee Policy Director for Human Rights Watch (HRW). Accusing regional governments of lying to the U.N and defying international law by sending refugees back to their home nations despite the risk of prosecution, Frelick urged nations to remember that “granting asylum is a humanitarian act that should be entirely divorced from political relations between states”.

“A virus is sweeping Asia. The symptoms are heightened xenophobia and amnesia about fundamental refugee rights. Australia and Indonesia succumbed first, in October, when they stopped boats carrying Sri Lankans..even though they came from a country experiencing massive violence and displacement” Mr Frelick wrote in an editorial appearing in the International Herald Tribune on Saturday, referring to the arrest of almost 250 Tamil refugees by the Indonesian Navy on request of the Australian Government, many of whom still remain on docked off the Indonesian port of Merak 3 months since their arrest.

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Ever heard of ‘archaeology’ being first priority in a conquered territory? If not, then you don’t know Sri Lanka, writes an academic from Jaffna on Colombo’s heritage genocide. Colombo’s use of archaeology against Tamils is not new. But the dimensions to which Tamils are now exposed to are not only its acceleration but the tragedy of facing imposed ‘knowledge supremacy’ that only the Sinhalese can explore, excavate, manage and teach heritage. Sri Lankan state is not the only culprit. The West, especially the UK, US, Germany, France and Holland as well as India, Japan and Australia, the main countries that have been giving funds, training and scholarships to Sri Lanka and also the UN agencies have to be equally indicted for blindly following only State protocols and vested interests, without considering the long-term genocidal impact of their assistances in the island, he further writes.

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Around fiteen to twenty persons had been swindled each for two hundred thousand rupees as ransom to have their abducted family members released in Jaffna, sources in Jaffna said. Sri Lanka Army (SLA) intelligence officers are alleged to have collaborated with certain persons in this racket.

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