[AFP]

Thousands of Tamils marched in Paris on Saturday to denounce what they termed the Sri Lankan government’s genocide of the island’s ethnic minority in its bid to wipe out Tamil Tiger rebels. Police put the number of marchers at 2,500 while organisers said some 3,000 participated in the demonstration. The marchers shouted slogans such “EU impose a truce”, and “The Sri Lankan president is a murderer”, and “Stop the Tamil genocide”.

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[AFP]

Thousands of members of the Tamil diaspora rallied Friday outside the White House to demand US pressure on the Sri Lankan government as it pursues a major offensive against Tiger rebels. The rally was met by a smaller counter-demonstration, mostly by members of Sri Lanka’s majority Sinhalese community, who called for the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) to end their trademark suicide attacks. The protests came just as the LTTE carried out a kamikaze-style air attack on Sri Lanka’s capital Colombo, bombing the main tax building and killing two people.

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[Reuters]

About 20,000 Tamils from across Europe are expected to protest in Geneva on Friday at Sri Lanka’s military offensive against Tamil rebels, the United Nations said on Thursday. Police in the Swiss city, which is home to the U.N. European headquarters and to many Tamil immigrants, said 200 buses from across Europe were expected to bring protesters in. Demonstrators were expected to wind through Geneva in the afternoon and then rally in the public square in front of the U.N.’s Palais des Nations complex, where Tamils held smaller protests in past weeks as fighting intensified in Sri Lanka.

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[The Hindu]

Tamils in the US will hold a demonstration in front of the State Department and the White House here on Friday protesting against the “genocide” against their community in Sri Lanka. ‘Tamils Against Genocide’, a pro-Tamils organisation, will organise a rally and hunger strike to urge US President Mr Barack Obama to bring an end to the “genocide” in northern Sri Lanka, where the Army and LTTE are engaged in a war.

“Tamils have been systematically attacked and brutalised since the government ordered international aid agencies out of the region last September,” the group said in a statement.

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