Cardiff Cricket Violence: Nine Arrested – South Wales Police
June 21, 2013
There were a number of arrests at yesterday’s cricket semi-final India v Sri Lanka at the Swalec Stadium, Cardiff, attended by 15,000 people. Officers facilitated a mostly peaceful protest outside the venue, South Wales Police told Colombo Telegraph.
Six men have been charged with aggravated trespass on the pitch and three men have been charged with criminal damage to a car, a public order offence, and assault outside the venue. They are all on police bail to appear at Cardiff Magistrates’ Court on July 7.
One man has been given a fixed penalty notice for being drunk and disorderly and another arrested on suspicion of disorder remains in police custody, said South Wales Police.
Protesters trespassed, carrying a placard reading ’40,000 Commonwealth Citizens massacred by Rajapaksa’ with a Tamil Eelam flag draped around his shoulders.
Tamil activists from the ‘Boycott Sri Lankan Cricket’ campaign staged a demonstration outside Swalec stadium in Cardiff calling on countries to suspend sporting ties with Sri Lanka, and support a call for an international, independent investigation into the mass atrocities of 2009.
UK Tamils gather at Cardiff protesting Sri Lankan cricket
[TamilNet, Thursday, 20 June 2013, 16:12 GMT]
Hundreds of Eezham Tamils from the UK gathered near the cricket stadium in Cardiff on Thursday to protest the presence of the Sri Lankan cricket team on British soil, urging the UK for a complete boycott of sporting and cultural ties with the genocide-accused Sri Lankan state. This mass protest follows on the heels of a violent incident near the Oval stadium on Monday, where dozens of Tamil activists protesting on the occasion of the Sri Lanka-Australia cricket match were brutally attacked by Sinhala mobs. 