Tim King Salem-News.com
Isaipriya's body positions recorded in photos and video tell a chilling story of war crimes and cover up. (Warning:disturbing images)
Isaipriya is taken captive by the Sri Lankan Army
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(SACRAMENTO) - Sometimes war crime evidence is obscure, sometimes it is undeniable. The latter is the case involving a young Tamil Tiger reporter named Shoba, more commonly known within the Tamil culture as Isaipriya, who met a terrible fate after being captured by the Sri Lankan Army (SLA) at the conclusion of the country's long running civil war.
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The SLA listed her name as Issei Piriya and recorded that she was a lieutenant colonel in the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam). Sri Lanka's government reported that she was killed in the fighting, on 18 May 2009. However new video released by Callum Mcrae of in London as part of the station's latest documentary on the war crimes committed by the SLA, "No Fire Zone" - shows that she was captured alive, appearing to have no physical injuries.
Video recorded of her alive, half nude and disoriented, sitting in what appears to be shallow water, proves that she was taken as a captive of the Sri Lankan Army. Isaipriya was initially covered up and treated with dignity.
However there is no question that she died as an army prisoner and the position her body was left in leaves no question that she was sexually assaulted. (http://www.channel4.com/news/fate-of-tamil-actress-chilling-new-evidence-from-sri-lanka)
Isaipriya's body positions recorded in photos and video tell a chilling story of war crimes and cover up.
The video from the new program, "No Fire Zone" was released by Channel 4's Callum Macrae, as Jonathan Miller reports. These Channel 4 journalists, along with the station's Jon Snow, have forced the tragedy of the mass murder of Tamil combatants and civilians by armed Sri Lankan government forces into the world spotlight.
For Sri Lanka, the new video could not come at a worse time.
World leaders will meet in Sri Lanka in less than two weeks for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Summit. Leaders including David Cameron, will visit this country as protests calling for a boycott against the country's horrific human rights abuses reach a feverish tempo.
Isaipriya tamilnet.tv anchor killed
Channel 4 released Srilanka war crime video
One of the women victims, stripped naked, hands tied behind back, and shot dead, as seen in the video footage that has recently reachedChannel-4 has been identified as 27-year-old Shoba, with nom de plume Isaippiriya, who worked as media specialist with the LTTE, according to theTamilNet Vanni correspondent who recently reached a free country in the West.“I am able to learn through those who have been at Mu’l'livaaykkaal in the final days of war, that Shoba remained unarmed and did not take part in combat,” the Vanni correspondent told TamilNet, adding that Shoba lost her 4-month-old baby girl, named Akal, in the last stage of the war.TamilNet refrains from publishing the cruel video, but instead publishes a video footage of Isaippiriya as a reporter from LTTE’s O’liveechchu video magazine.Isaippiriya was born in 1982, was educated in the Memorial School until Grade 5. She obtained a scholarship to continue her education in Veampadi Girls High School in Jaffna until 1996.With her family displaced by war to Vanni, Isaippiriya continued her studies in Vanni till she joined the movement’s media division.
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When the first photos were released several years ago, we saw the images of Isaipriya's nude, brutalized body with her hands tied behind her back. These widely published photos of the young reporter and actress adored by the Tamil culture, broke hearts and told a savage story of war crimes and an army's sexual depravity.
At 5:50 in this clip, we see the body of Issapria with her hands bound behind her back.
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Issapria's hands are untied in new clip
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Salem-News.com brought forth more chilling, conclusive evidence of Sri Lanka's war crimes on 12 June 2012, by releasing a videotape showing the body of Isaipriya in a row of dead Tamil Tigers, or LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam). Her hands are untied and she is presented as a dead combatant. The time stamp shows the sequence between the initial images of her body, and the image of her lined up with her hands untied. The video was released by London attorney Vasuki Muruhathas, who represents an unnamed Tamil war crime victim. She acquired 32 new video clips of captured and dead LTTE fighters, including the tape showing Isiapriya posed as a dead combatant. (http://www.salem-news.com/articles/june242012/war-crime-proof-tk.php
The imagery altogether, shows that Isaipriya was very clearly the victim of a vicious war crime. Her story is one of thousands that went mostly unreported in 2009. This is due to the fact that Sri Lanka's journalists are some of the most threatened, murdered and disappeared media employees. Those who write favorably about the minority Tamils are targeted, sometimes openly, and often through the notorious 'white vans' that are used to abduct those deemed a threat to the government. The victims are often tortured, their bodies frequently deposited near their homes.
Isaipriya, who was also known as Shoba, was listed as a Lieutenant Colonel in the LTTE, but she did not fill the role of a combatant, only as a journalist. She was a mother but her baby died in the months preceding her own death. Sri Lanka's government had a binding obligation under international law to treat prisoners of war humanely and to this day, the government under President Majinda Rajapaksa admits nothing and denies everything, even in the face of overwhelming evidence.
Homage To Isaipriya - Poem
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