STUDENTS AT RISK OF TORTURE FOLLOWING MARCH
Four students were arrested on 1 December in Jaffna, northern Sri Lanka, by the Terrorist Investigation Division (TID) of the police. They are being held in Vavuniya for interrogation and are at risk of torture.
US Concerned About Attack on Jaffna Students
The United States expressed concern Thursday about attacks on Sri Lankan university students during a protest in a former war zone in the north of the country.
November has been an eventful month, not very good omen for the Rajapaksa regime. First it was their rush for the impeachment against the Chief Justice, with much resistance emerging from the legal fraternity and the public.
The death of Freedom of Assembly, Expression and Religion in the North of Sri Lanka
Every 26th[1] and 27th of November since the end of the war (2009), we hear of people in the North not being able to moan their dead, not being able to carry out peaceful assemblies, not being able to partake in religious festivals or observances in public or at home, and every year it falls on deaf ears. Also noteworthy is the fact that such incidents are most often reported only in the Tamil media and sites or non-main stream news websites.
On the evening of the November 27 at 06:07 PM (local time), flames were lit in commemoration of Maaveerar Naal 2012 (Martyrs’ Day 2012). It was initiated by the Tamil students from the Jaffna University.
Police, army turn terror on Jaffna University students
According to reports from Jaffna, the Jaffna University students wearing black bands were staging the protest rally opposite the university main entrance around 11 am when hundreds of police and military personnel attacked them with poles, wires and cables, seriously wounding at least seven of them.
Stepping up their terror campaign against the Jaffna students’ society, Sri Lankan police on Saturday (01) has arrested four Jaffna University Students, including its union leader P. Darshananth and his colleague, in a midnight raid.
With the academic activities of the Jaffna University coming to a grinding halt in protest of police and military atrocities during the past three days, Sri Lanka’s defence authority has increased the military presence around the Jaffna University amid fears that there could be more arrests of University students on false charges of terrorism related activities.
Amid wide spread condemnation and protests, Sri Lanka’s Judicial and Defence Authorities on Tuesday (04) have placed three Jaffna University students, arrested on Saturday (1), under draconian anti-terrorism laws.
Despite threatening military presence, key Tamil political parties backed by like-minded democratic political forces in the South, Tuesday staged a protest rally in the heart of Sri Lanka’s northern town of Jaffna to condemn “the systematic and sustained police-military aggression against the Jaffna University students”
Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka (JDS) was the first organized body of journalists, writers and human rights defenders who had been forced to flee the island of Sri Lanka due to work related persecution. The group was formed on the 18th of July 2009 at a meeting held in Berlin, Germany.
