[Radio Netherlands Worldwide]

Many Tamils doubt the possibility of an unbiased investigation as long as the military continues to kill, abduct, torture or rape Tamil civilians, they say.

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[Huffington Post]

The Sri Lankan government is in hot pursuit of U.S. businesses, seeking to usher in more investment dollars to help rebuild the country following the end of the civil war two years ago. Jobs that help to grow the economy and benefit all Sri Lankans are welcome. But companies are on notice that the Sri Lanka government is following ethnically discriminatory policies, and those that favor only certain segments of the population — wittingly or not — are compounding the ethnic divides that caused the 26-year war in the first place.

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[Reuters Canada]

“Everyone knows certain sections of the military and the political groups operating in Jaffna are behind these (violations),” Keerthi Thennakoon, executive director of the Campaign for Free and Fair Elections (CaFFE), told Reuters.

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[Mission Network News]

The volatile situation at Gospel for Asia’s Sri Lanka Bible College is escalating as a local elected official and a small group of Buddhist monks are falsely accusing the school of being a front for the Tamil Tigers. Founder and President of Gospel for Asia KP Yohannan describes what happened over the weekend. “One of the elected political officials who is very much anti-Christian came (to our campus) with a loaded gun, and a whole bunch of people with him threatened to kill our students and rape our female students, and they demanded our school be closed down.”

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[AP]

Residents in Sri Lanka’s tense eastern city of Batticaloa and surrounding towns go to the polls Monday in a vote the government says is key to restoring order in the area, which troops recaptured months ago following more than a decade of rule by the Tamil Tiger rebels.

But human rights groups say the government is irresponsibly rushing ahead with the city and village council elections to show that its rule has brought democracy to the long-troubled east. They fear that violence and intimidation will taint the results.

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[IFJ]

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) is appalled at another attempt to intimidate journalists working for the state-owned television broadcaster Sri Lanka Rupavahini Corporation (SLRC) since a violent altercation at the SLRC offices was instigated by a government minister in December. According to the Free Media Movement (FMM), an IFJ affiliate, the Assistant Director of News Camera at SLRC, Priyal Ranjith Perera, was reportedly threatened at his home in Pitakotte by a gang of four men who attempted to attack him with a knife.

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[IFJ]

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) unequivocally condemns actions by senior Sri Lankan police to intimidate, abuse and humiliate journalists who report in the public interest. The Free Media Movement (FMM), an IFJ affiliate, reports that a senior police officer, Inspector Mahesh Perera, abused and assaulted Sugath Dharmapriya, a news producer of Derana TV, who was reporting from the scene of a bomb blast in Colombo on February 23.

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[BBC]

The United States does not believe that free & fair elections can be held in Batticaloa if one party is allowed to bear arms says the US Ambassador for Sri Lanka, Robert O Blake. If one party is allowed arms and threaten and intimidate other parties and other contestants free and fair elections can not be held, said the US Ambassador addressing a public function held in Batticaloa on Wednesday. The US Ambassador said,” Unchecked illegal paramilitary activity also discourages the prime investment that is badly needed to help the reconstruction process in the east”.

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