Tuesday, September 3, 2013

Bullet ruffles up House sittings

By Gagani Weerakoon-

Tuesday, 03 Sep 2013

Confusion and security threats added spice to and otherwise lukewarm two days of Parliament sittings last week, which only had an adjournment debate on Rathupaswala shooting incident and vote of condolence on two late MPs listed in the Order Paper for Wednesday and Thursday respectively.

Bullet Ruffles Up House Sittings by nelvely

Patriots must rise against ruling traitors : lucrative Port pilot operations taken over by China

(Lanka-e-News-02.Sep.2013, 10.30P.M.) A fresh condition introduced that Rs. 3.5 million shall be paid per month by Sri Lanka if the ship pilots program also called the ‘pilot station’ of the Sri Lanka government is to be carried out in the new Port constructed in Colombo by the Chinese, had plunged the Colombo Port into a grave crisis, according to reports reaching Lanka e news inside information division.

Patriots Must Rise Against Ruling Traitors Lucrative Port Pilot Operations Taken Over by China by nelvely

Welikada Prison riot report delayed, even after 10 months

Tuesday, 03 September 2013

Rehabilitation and Prison Reforms Minister Chandrasiri Gajadeera has said that the report on last year’s Welikada prison riot has been delayed further.

Authorities are yet to finalize and release the report on the riot at the Welikada Prison last November that resulted in the death of at least 27 inmates and injuries to over 40 people.

Earlier last month the three-member committee had given an assurance that the report, after being delayed on several occasions, will be handed over by the end of last week.

Minister Gajadeera has said that all members of the committee appointed to prepare the report need to be present to submit it.

However he said that most often one committee member is not available or is overseas resulting in the delay in handing over the final report.

Some dictators have held regular elections - UNP

Tuesday, 03 September 2013

The UNP has said that some dictators were of the habit of holding elections on a regular basis.

UNP parliamentarian Harin Fernando made this comment at a news conference in response to a statement made by President Mahinda Rajapaksa that he could not be considered a dictator since he held elections regularly.

Fernando explained that it was not the holding of elections, but the manner in which they are held that determined the actions of a dictator.

According to Fernando, it was important to have independent commissions especially the Independent Elections Commission if the government wanted to hold free and fair elections in the country.

“The absence of an Independent Elections Commission will mean the absence of free and fair elections,” he has said.

Soldiers at Your Service

The Sri Lankan Army brutally crushed a separatist movement a few years ago. Now they want you to stay at their luxury hotels and resorts.

By Brendan Brady|Posted Friday, Aug. 30, 2013, at 8:08 AM

A Sri Lankan army trooper patrols the island's northern town of Jaffna on Sept. 18, 2011. The government has tried to rebrand its troops as a benevolent force for rebuilding and development.

Photo by Ishara S.Kodikara/AFP/Getty Images

Each Friday Roads & Kingdoms and Slate publish a new dispatch from around the globe. For more foreign correspondence mixed with food, war, travel, and photography, visit their online magazine or follow @roadskingdoms on Twitter.

KANKESANTHURAI HIGH SECURITY ZONE, Sri Lanka—Visitors to Thalsevana Holiday Resortare greeted a couple of miles from the hotel itself, at an army checkpoint. A courteous officer, flanked by several machine gun-toting grunts, emerges from a guard station to check guests’ passports and ensure they have a reservation. If everything is in order, guests are then cleared to enter the Kankesanthurai High Security Zone. Along the road are buildings whose condition reflects the violent history of the area: Offices of the Special Investigations Unit and Ordnance Corps are still pocked with holes from bullet and mortar fire.

Kankesanthurai, a sandy and palm-tree filled stretch on Sri Lanka’s northern coast, is one of dozens of High Security Zones throughout northern Sri Lanka, established during its war against the separatist Tamil Tigers. In 2009, the Tigers were defeated in dramatic and controversial fashion: Thousands of Tamil civilians were killed in the final months of the conflict as the government shelled the last rebel stronghold, some 60 miles southeast of Thalsevana.

The Tigers have shown no signs of regrouping since that final assault, but peace has left an army with no one to fight. The government, however, has resisted calls to drawdown its massive security force. Instead, it has steered the military directly into an expanding range of businesses, perhaps none more conspicuous than tourism. The Sri Lankan military’s hospitality portfolionow spans from hotels and restaurants to whale-watching tours and airlines in an island nation that the travel guideLonely Planet bills as this year’s best destination—a “cut-price paradise put back on the map.”

Thalsevana has had a peculiar path to becoming a resort. The area was mostly inhabited by Tamil fishermen before the Sri Lankan military appropriated some 6,000 acres here in the early 1990s. The government built a naval base in the newly created high security zone to enforce a blockade against Tiger resupply ships and to patrol against hit-and-run attacks by small “Sea Tiger” crafts. The area’s inhabitants were expelled without compensation. (They are currently petitioning the government, without much hope, for a return of the land).

On Thalsevana’s beach these days, the conflict seems a distant memory. Dusk casts a purple sky over the ocean as guests, mostly upper-class Sinhalese visiting from the south, enjoy beer and arrack (a local rum-like tipple concocted from coconuts) on a veranda after having taken a plunge in the warm and salty sea. All of the staff are active military personnel, and many have yet to master the fine points of civilian hospitality—some are clearly awestruck at the sight of a foreigner. They did serve vacationers before the war ended, but those were their direct superiors: officers on leave from frontline duty.

Thalsevana is just one of the military’s expanding and diversifying hotel offerings. Last year, the Army launched its own resort brand, Laya, a Sanskrit word that means rest and repose. “Our vision is to make the Laya brand one of the most sought-after resort hotels in Sri Lanka,” the chief of the army said at a news conference in November. But many see the military’s push into tourism and other businesses as highly disquieting.

The government’s pride in its prosecution of the war—and, conversely, what critics see at the extreme unseemliness of the military opening high-end resorts—is sharpest in what is perhaps the most unique of the military’s hotels: Lagoon’s Edge. Overlooking the body of water around which the Tigers made their last stand, the hotel is marketed to Sinhalese war tourists as an opportunity to bask in the afterglow of the battlefield where the military defeated the Tiger “terrorists.” The lagoon and surrounding land, however, was also the site of thousands of fleeing Tamil civilians, many of whom were shot and shelled by the Army—up to 40,000 civilians died during the last few weeks of fighting, according to the United Nations. What the military sees as a due monument, packaged for tourists, to its victory over evil, others view as triumphalizing war crimes.

Concern about the military’s creep into the private sector extends far beyond poor taste. Human Rights Watch and other watchdogs have documented ongoing disappearances, rape, and other forms of violence by security forces. More than four years after the end of the conflict, the military continues to rule the north repressively, controlling the area as its fiefdom apart from the rest of the country. Among their draconian restrictions in the north: public gatherings of more than five people are outlawed, and residents can still be detained as “terrorist suspects” with little or no evidence.

Figures vary but most estimates put the size of the security forces between 300,000 and 400,000, about one-half of whom are stationed in the lowly populated north, where the civil war raged hottest. That extreme troop density—around one soldier for every 10 residents—is among the highest in modern history, surpassing relative troop levels of the British in Northern Ireland, French in Algeria, and Russians in Chechnya during the height of their counterinsurgencies.

The government has tried to rebrand its troops as a benevolent force for rebuilding and development. It’s true that in many quarters of the country, the military is seen as more efficient and professional than other public or private institutions. But it is hard to see how war-torn and economically depressed Tamil areas are well served by the military opening and staffing businesses themselves, rather than assisting local communities develop.

Critics say that the real motive behind the military’s enterprise is to lay roots for an indefinite large-scale presence in the north. “A lot of it is make-work,” says Fred Carver, with the London-based Sri Lanka Campaign for Peace and Justice. “They have an army that’s far too large and they need to keep them busy and in place.” By running businesses, from hotels to farms, military units can seemingly normalize their presence, while continuing to watch over and manage the once-restive region without having to be deployed en masse in the streets, says Kumaravadivel Guruparan, a university lecturer and lawyer in the northern city of Jaffna. “It’s a process where the military wants to make itself part of daily life.”

And even if they’re serving beers and planting rice, military presence means military control. “It means keeping control over economic resources, it means control over land, it means control over decision-making powers, and ultimately it means demographic change,” says Alan Keenan, a Sri Lanka analyst with the International Crisis Group, a nonprofit conflict-resolution group based in Brussels. Keenan’s last point—demographic change—is particularly sensitive. Tamil activists, along with many international observers, accuse the government of attempting to re-engineer the social makeup of Tamil-majority areas, with soldiers and their families forming the first wave of Sinhalese settlers, to be followed, through incentives of land grants and economic privileges, by Sinhalese from other parts of the country. Top government officials have pointed to their desire to rid the country of ethnic enclaves. As the majority ethnic group on the island, Sinhalese should be a majority in each region of the country, argues Secretary of Defense Gotabaya Rajapaksa, brother of President Mahinda Rajapaksa. “Whether it will take 10 or 20 or 30 years, it’s happening,” says Keenan.

That’s not to say that travelers should avoid Sri Lanka categorically; this is not Myanmar in the bad old days, where a military junta got kickbacks on every tourist dollar spent. But the peace here is complicated. Lounging around at Thalsavena during my stay, there was a retired Sinhalese officer who hadn’t been to the north in years. The area “was like hell” during the war, he said, and a vacation on the strand was just another dividend of peace. The question remains, though: Who really paid the bill?

Lankan Professor files discrimination lawsuit in US

MONDAY, 02 SEPTEMBER 2013

A Bethlehem Area School Board in Pennsylvania Ave, United States member and college professor has filed a discrimination lawsuit against the Phillipsburg School District, claiming he was passed over for full-time teaching positions based on his race and age.

Sudantha Vidanage alleges he was twice denied a chance to interview for open math and business positions, despite holding relevant degrees and amassing decades of work experience, as administrators opted for younger, white candidates with less experience.

"The district's refusal to even interview Mr. Vidanage for the open positions, despite his unparalleled qualifications, was clearly intended to assure that the extremely low minority representation among the school district's staff remained that way," states the three-count lawsuit, filed earlier this month in New Jersey Superior Court in Belvidere.

The complaint names the Phillipsburg School District and unidentified people who "established and/or enforced the discriminatory hiring practices" as defendants.

Phillipsburg schools Superintendent George Chando could not be reached for comment. There was no attorney on record for the district, according to court documents.

A native of Sri Lanka, Vidanage, who is an adjunct professor of algebra and statistics at Lehigh Carbon Community College and Northampton Community College, first applied for a full-time position at the district in spring 2010, the lawsuit states.

Despite more than three decades of business and educational work experience and masters degrees from Lehigh and Columbia universities, the district showed no interest in his candidacy and did not offer an interview, according to his attorney, Howard Vex.

Shortly after being passed over, Vidanage began working as a substitute teacher at Phillipsburg High School and repeatedly expressed interest in gaining full-time employment, the lawsuit states. In 2011, five positions opened up within the district, including high school business and math positions as well as a spot as a middle school math teacher.

But again, Vidanage says he applied and was not given a chance to interview.

Concerned, he began to investigate and found most, if not all, the open positions were given to white applicants born in the United States, each of whom was a recent college graduate or lacked significant experience, the lawsuit asserts. Vex said his client later found that while 32 percent of the district's students were minorities, just 3 percent of the teaching staff were minorities.

"Something seems very amiss here," he said. "It just doesn't seem right. The percentages are unbelievably glaring."

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission began investigating Vidanage's claims of discrimination in 2011 but its findings were inconclusive, according to a letter, dated May 7, 2013, included in the suit.
Still, Vidanage says in court documents it is clear the district used a combination of either his age or race as a determining factor in passing over his application and refusing to even grant an interview. To date, Vex said his client has not been given a satisfactory explanation as to why he was passed over for the positions.

"This pattern of blatant and intentional discrimination served no legitimate purpose, and it is the students of the Phillipsburg School District that have been intentionally made worse off by those very persons entrusted with improving their education," the lawsuit reads.

According to his lawyer, the Bethlehem Area School District board member wanted to teach at Phillipsburg because he saw it as a chance to give back to society, having immigrated to a country with next to nothing and achieving a high degree of success, Vex said.

"He was doing it because he wanted to give back," he said. "He had lived the American Dream. He thought he could be an inspiration to the kids and he really enjoys teaching."

Vidanage is seeking to be paid lost wages and damages as well as attorney fees and other relief the court sees fit. He has requested a jury trial.

Vex said his client doesn't want to hurt the district and is simply seeking a fair chance for future applicants who may be a minority or older in age.

"The goal is just to make sure the school board or administration will have an open mind and hire a more diverse staff to reflect the student body," he said.(The Express-Times)

Monday, September 2, 2013

UN faces political pressure from powers that withhold casualty figures: Jude Lal

[TamilNet, Sunday, 01 September 2013, 23:21 GMT]
While the UN Security Council is the most decisive political organ, why did the US chose to move the UN Human Rights Commission and that too avoiding any reference to UN's own Expert Panel report, questions Dr. Jude Lal Fernando, one of the organizers of the Peoples' Tribunal on Sri Lanka held in Dublin in 2010, explaining the ‘tension’ found within the UN human rights and humanitarian system. Observing two reactions by the UN system, he also details how the casualty figures were intentionally withheld by major powers during war to let the SL State to complete its genocidal onslaught. Even now, the powers sitting on the issue at the UN are exerting political pressure on the system to control and to ‘interpret’ the vast pool of evidence that is against the SL State as well as themselves, Dr Fernando said in a video interview to TamilNet on Saturday.

UN Faces Political Pressure From Powers That Withhold Casualty Figures Jude Lal by nelvely

Fr. Yogeswaran Harassed After Pillay Meeting

September 3, 2013

Officials from the Centre for Promotion and Protection of Human Rights working in Trincomalee said they had been harassed by military personnel, two days after UN Human Rights Chief Navi Pillay complained of reprisals against persons and organisations in the North and East who held discussions with her during her week long mission to Sri Lanka.

The Centre is run by Jesuit priests working with families of the disappeared in the East, the AFP news agency said. Representatives from the Centre had meetings with High Commissioner Pillay last week, AFP said.

Five or six policemen had visited Fr. Veerasan Yogeswaran who runs the Centre at midnight and early morning a few hours after he met with the UN Envoy, AFP said.

The priest said his concern was that security forces personnel were going to homes at midnight and questioning people, AFP reported.

Centre for Policy Alternatives Chief Dr. Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu told AFP he had travelled to the north where several persons had reported being visited by security forces personnel after their discussions with Pillay.

At her press briefing Pillay called the visitations by security forces personnel upon those who spoke with her, including two priests and journalists and civilians the most ‘disturbing aspects” of her visit. “The UN takes reprisals against those who speak with UN officials very seriously,” Pillay warned, saying she would be reporting the incidents to the UN Human Rights Council.

Pillay told journalists at her briefing that the Sri Lankan Government had denied the allegations of reprisals against those who spoke with her. “If I am met with flat denial, I have to believe what the community tells me,” the UN Envoy told journalists, asked how she authenticates such complaints.Read More

The Unknown Fate Of Thousands In Sri Lanka

By Leena Manimekalai -September 3, 2013

Leena Manimekalai

By the wayside: This wreath/ with no name attached /is for you/who has no grave/ As the place of earth/ which embraced you/ could not be found/this wreath was placed by the wayside/Forgive me/ for placing a memorial for you/ by the roadside

writes Basil Fernando about the memorial constructed by families of disappeared at Radoluwa Junction in Seeduwa, a town near the city of Negombo, Srilanka. When I visited the memorial with lingering faces of the disappeared, it signified an important attempt to keep the memories alive, a yearning to prevent recurrence of mass disappearances and seek justice on behalf of the victims of disappearances and their families. Sri Lanka which has a deep and complex history of political violence is struggling to redeem the past with a frozen present and a black hole future. Communal riots, political assassinations and ethnic conflict have been an element of the socio political landscape of this tear nation for more than a century. Two heads of State, dozen national political leaders and numerous regional and local politicians, journalists, activists and artists have been assassinated by groups representing virtually every shade of political spectrum. Srilankan State deploys disappearances and extra judicial killings as an instrument of public policy in the name of State Emergencies, Prevention of Terrorism Act, Dubbing of persons as terrorists, unpatriotic, enemies of state. Brutal suppressions of two armed insurrections in the Sinhala South in 1971-72, 1987-89 led by Peoples Liberation Front (JVP) and an armed Tamil Separatist Movement since 1970s led by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam(LTTE) in the Tamil North and East of the island had spotted Srilankan State guilty of horrific human rights abuses. Now the Nation is the world leader in number of disappeared crossing tens of thousands who have no date of death, no place of death, no body, and no grave or funeral rites. Obviously there is no shelling, no bombing in the island since 2009 and the State wants the world to believe that war is over but who will bring peace to the families who continue to lose their members to State Terror and also been denied their basic right to even open their mouth about the injustice

S. V. Kirubaharan- 02 September 2013

With more than two decades of experience in observing and listening to Sri Lanka’s statements in the UN Human Rights Forums, I would like to predict the content of their forthcoming statement to the 24th session of the UN Human Rights Council - HRC.

Prediction of Sri Lanka’s statement to the 24th session of the HRC - S. V. Kirubaharan by nelvely

Why Is Land A Fundamental Issue To The Tamils?

By K.Vigneswaran -September 3, 2013

Dr. K.Vigneswaran

President Jayewardene did not like the word ‘colonisation’. Instead, he preferred the terms ‘land settlement’. But the Land Settlement Ordinance uses ‘settlement’ to mean a settlement on claims over ‘land’. Item 18 of the Provincial Councils List of the 13th Amendment, reads as follows:

18. Land, – Land, that is to say, rights in or over land, land tenure, transfer and alienation of land, land use, land settlement, and land improvement, to the extent set out in Appendix II.

As against the above entry, let us have a look at what appears in item 18 of the State List of the Indian Constitution:

18. Land, that is to say, right in or over land, land tenures including the relationship of landlord and tenant, and the collection of rents, transfer and alienation of agricultural land, land improvement and agricultural loans; colonisations.

The terms “rights in or over land” would include the term “land settlement” as understood in the Land Settlement Ordinance of Sri Lanka. Hence the terms “land settlement” in item 18 of the Provincial Council List in the Sri Lankan Constitution must necessarily mean “colonisation” as given in item 18 of the State List of the Indian Constitution.

Such play with words are endemic throughout the 13th Amendment to the Sri Lankan Constitution, indicating the want of Sri Lankan Governments’ will in devolving powers to the Tamils.

National Land Commission

Having understood the meaning of terms used in in item 18 of the Provincial Council List, let us go into the nuts and bolts of the subject of ‘land’ in the 13th Amendment. Proceeding from item 18, let us look at the Appendix II. This Appendix has three paragraphs. Let us first look at paragraph 3. It says that the Government should establish a ‘National Land Commission’ which would be responsible for the formulation of national land policy with regard to the use of State land and that the Commission should include representatives of all Provincial Councils. Needless to say that the Commission has to be established by an Act of Parliament.

The question then arises as to why this was this not done? Who now decides national policy? The answer to the second question is, the Minister of Lands in the Cabinet of Ministers or his bureaucracy in the Land Commissioner General’s Department.

The National Land Commission is required to have a Technical Secretariat representing all the relevant disciplines relating to land use to assist the National Land Commission. Such a Technical Secretariat has also not been established. The Land Use Committees functioning in the District Kachcheris cannot claim the statutory status to play the role of this Technical Secretariat.

Paragraph 3 goes on to state that in the exercise of powers devolved on them on ‘land’ the Provincial Councils shall give due regard to the national policy formulated by the National Land Commission. Since there is no National Land Commission, one must conclude that there is no national policy on land. Such a harsh conclusion is the main explanation for all the goings-on in respect of ‘land’ in the North and East of Sri Lanka.

State Land Required By A Provincial Council Read More

CID questioned BBC Jaffna correspondent

CID questioned Manikawasagam, BBC correspondent of northern province this morning over holding telephone conversation with political prisoner detained at the Vavuniya prison.

Tamil National Alliance strongly condemns this activity.

Speaking to media TNA spokesman Suresh Premachchandran went on to say,

Several media organisations were attacked , journalists were killed , threatened , questions and several others have migrated from the country.

However Lankan government express concern over comments made by the UN Human Rights Commissioner Navaneetham Pilly. Pillay said SriLanka government fail to act on democratic manner.

There are no restrictions for journalists they are permitted meet all people and hold discussions with them, spokesman said.

பிபிசி தமிழோசை செய்தியாளரிடம் பயங்கரவாதப் புலனாய்வுப் பிரிவு விசாரணை

BBC TAMIL-தமிழோசை

விசாரணைக்குட்படுத்தப்பட்ட ஊடகவியலாளர்

ர்

இலங்கையின் வவுனியா பிரதேசத்திற்கான பிபிசி தமிழோசை செய்தியாளர், பொன்னையா மாணிக்கவாசகம், இன்று திங்கட்கிழமை, பயங்கரவாதப் புலனாய்வுத் துறை அதிகாரிகளால், விசாரணைக்காக அழைக்கப்பட்டார்.

பிபிசி தமிழோசைக்காக கடந்த சுமார் 15 ஆண்டுகளாக வட இலங்கையிலிருந்து பணியாற்றிக்கொண்டிருக்கும் மாணிக்கவாசகத்துக்கு, இந்த அழைப்பாணைக்கான காரணங்கள் குறித்து முன்னதாக அறிவிக்கப்படவில்லை.

விசாரணையின் போது அவரது வழக்குரைஞர் உடன் இருக்கவும் அவருக்கு அனுமதி வழங்கப்படவில்லை.

விசாரணையின்போது, மாணிக்கவாசகம் மகசின் சிறைச்சாலையில் தடுத்து வைக்கப்பட்டுள்ள இரண்டு விசாரணைக்கைதிகளிடமிருந்து கடந்த சில மாதங்களில் வந்த சில கைத்தொலைபேசி அழைப்புகள், மற்றும் அவர் திரும்ப அவர்களுக்கு விடுத்த அழைப்புகள் பற்றி விசாரிக்கப்பட்டார்.

மகசின் சிறைச்சாலை நீண்ட காலமாகவே அங்கு விசாரணையின்றி மற்றும் நீதி வழிமுறைகளின்றி தடுத்து வைக்கப்பட்டிருக்கும் நூற்றுக்கணக்கான தமிழ் சிறைக்கைதிகள் விஷயத்தில் செய்திகளில் அடிபட்டுக்கொண்டிருக்கிறது. இந்தக் கைதிகள் விடுதலைப்புலிகளுடன் தொடர்புகொண்டதாக சந்தேகிக்கப்படுகிறார்கள்.

இவர்கள் மீது முறையான நீதிமன்ற விசாரணைகள் நடத்தப்படவேண்டும் அல்லது அவர்கள் உடனடியாக விடுதலை செய்யப்படவேண்டும் என்று மனித உரிமை அமைப்புகள் கோரி வருகின்றன.

ஒரு செய்தியாளர் என்ற வகையில், பல ஆண்டுகள் விசாரணையின்றி தடுத்து வைக்கப்பட்டிருக்கும் சிறைக்கைதிகள் மற்றும் அவர்களது குடும்பத்தினரிடமிருந்து ,இது போன்ற தொலைபேசி அழைப்புகள் வருவது சகஜம் என்று மாணிக்கவாசகம் அதிகாரிகளிடம் தெரிவித்தார். அவர்கள் பொதுவாக தங்களது பிரச்சினைகளை விவாதிப்பதுடன், தாங்கள் விரைவாக விடுதலை ஆக ஏதேனும் வாய்ப்பு இருக்கிறதா என்றும் கேட்பார்கள் என்றும் அவர் கூறினார்.

பல தொலைபேசி அழைப்புகள் விடுக்கப்பட்டு, எடுக்கப்படுவதற்கு முன்னர் துண்டிக்கப்படும் போது, அவ்வாறான அழைப்புகளை (missed calls) , தனது தொழில் ரீதியான கடமைகளின் ஒரு பகுதியாக, தான் திரும்ப அழைத்ததாகவும் அவர் கூறினார்.

பிபிசியின் செய்தியாளராக இலங்கையின் வட பகுதியில் நீண்டகாலம் இருப்பதால், தனது தொலைபேசி எண்கள் பலருக்குத் தெரிந்திருக்கும் என்றும் அவர் கூறினார்.

மாணிக்கவாசகத்துக்கு எதிராக ஏதேனும் வழக்கு பதியப்படுகிறதா என்பது குறித்தோ அல்லது அவர் மீண்டும் விசாரணைக்காக அதிகாரிகளை சந்திக்கவேண்டியிருக்குமா என்பது குறித்தோ எந்தத் தகவலும் அவருக்குத் தரப்படவில்லை.

බීබීසී මාධ්‍යවේදියා ත්‍රස්ත විමර්ශන ඒකකයට

2013 සැප්තැම්බර් 2

බීබීසී තමිල්ඕසේ වවුනියා වාර්තාකරු පී මානික්කවාසගම් කොළඹ ත්‍රස්ත විමර්ෂණ ඒකකයට කැඳවා අද උදැසන ප්‍රශ්න කොට තිබේ.

ඔහු කොළඹට කැඳවා තිබුනත්, ප්‍රශ්න කිරීම සඳහා හේතු හෝ ඔහුට එරෙහි චෝදනා පිළිබඳව කලින් දැනුම්දීමක් නොකෙරුණු අතර ප්‍රශ්න කෙරුණු අවස්ථාව සඳහා නීතීඥ වරයකු කැටුව යෑමට ඔහු කළ ඉල්ලීම ද ප්‍රතික්ෂේප කෙරිණි.

සබැඳි තේමා

මැගසින් බන්ධනාගාරයේ රැඳවියන් දෙදෙනෙකු ඔහු වෙත දුන් දුරකථන පණිවුඩ පිළිබඳව මෙන්ම රැඳවියන්ගේ දුරකථන වලට ඔහු කළ ඇමතුම් පිලිබඳව මානික්කවාසගම් මාධ්‍යවේදියා ගෙන් පොලිසිය ප්‍රශ්න කොට තිබේ.

තමා මාධ්‍යවේදියෙක් වශයෙන් රැකියාවේ නියුතු හෙයින් මෙවැනි දුරකථන ඇමතුම් තමන් වෙත නිරන්තරයෙන් ලැබෙන බවත්, සිරකරුවන් පමණක් නොව ඔවුන්ගේ ඥාතීන් තමන් හා සංවාදයට නිරතුරුව එළඹෙන බවත් පොලීසිය වෙත පැවසූ බවයි, මානික්කවාසගම් ප්‍රකාශ කරන්නේ.

සිරකරුවන්ගේ දුක්ගැනවිලි

වසර ගණනාවක් සිරගත කොට සිටින රැඳවියන්ගේ දුක්ගැනවිලි මෙන්ම ඉක්මන් නිදහසට ඇති ඉඩකඩ මෙම සංවාද වලට මාතෘකා වන බව ඔහු පොලිසියට පවසා තිබේ.

සිරකරුවන්ගේ දුරකථන ඇමතුම් මඟ හැරුණු අවස්ථාවලදී තමන් ආපසු එම අංක ඇමතු බවද එය තම 'වෘත්තීය කටයුතු සඳහා අවශ්‍ය කතාබහක්' යනුවෙන් තමා කරුණු පැහැදිළි කර දුන් බවද, ඔහු ප්‍රකාශ කොට තිබේ.

උතුරු ශ්‍රී ලංකාවේ බීබීසී වාර්තාකරු ලෙස සේවය කරන තමාගේ දුරකථන අංක බොහෝ දෙනෙක් දන්නා බවද දීර්ඝ කාලයක් මුළුල්ලේ කෙරුණු ප්‍රශ්න කිරීමේදී ඔහු පොලිසියට පවසා තිබේ.

පී මානික්කවාසගම්ට එරෙහිව පැමිණිලි ගොනු කෙරෙන්නේ ද යන්න හෝ යලි ප්‍රශ්න කිරීම සඳහා යලි කැඳවීමට බලාපොරෝත්තු වන්නේද යන්න කොළඹ ත්‍රස්ත විමර්ෂණ ඒකකය පැහැදිළි කර නැහැ.

වවුනියාවේ පදිංචි මානික්කවාසගම්, වසර පහළොවකට අධික කාලයක් උතුරේ සිට බීබීසී දෙමළ සේවය වෙනුවෙන් වාර්තා කරන ජ්‍යෙෂ්ඨ මාධ්‍යවේදියකි.