The Tamil National Alliance was a political alliance in Sri Lanka which represented the Sri Lankan Tamil minority of the country. It was formed in October 2001 by a group of moderate Tamil nationalist parties and former Tamil militant groups. The alliance originally supported self-determination in an autonomous state for the island's Tamils. It supported negotiations with the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) to resolve the civil war in Sri Lanka. The TNA was considered a political proxy of the LTTE, with the LTTE personally selecting some of its candidates, even though its leadership maintains it never supported the LTTE and merely negotiated with the LTTE just as the government did.
The Eelam People's Democratic Party (EPDP) is a Sri Lankan political party and a pro-government paramilitary organization. It is led by its founder Douglas Devananda.
Alfred Thangarajah Duraiappah was a Sri Lankan lawyer who served as Mayor of Jaffna from 1970 until his assassination. He was also a Member of Parliament for Jaffna from 1960 to 1965. Duraiappah was killed by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.
The Allaipiddy massacre or Allaipiddy murders refers to the May 13, 2006 killing of 13 minority Tamil civilians in separate incidents in three villages on the islet of Kayts in northern Sri Lanka.
TamilNet is an online newspaper that provides news and feature articles on current affairs in Sri Lanka, specifically related to the erstwhile Sri Lankan Civil War. The website was formed by members of the Sri Lankan Tamil community residing in the United States and publishes articles in English, German and French.
Kathiravelu Nythiananda Devananda, commonly known as Douglas Devananda, is a Sri Lankan Tamil politician, Cabinet Minister and leader of the Eelam People's Democratic Party. Originally a Sri Lanka Tamil militant who fought against the Sri Lankan government for an independent Tamil Eelam, he became a pro-government paramilitary leader and politician. Due to his strong opposition to and vocal criticism of the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, they unsuccessfully tried to assassinate him over 10 times. Devananda is a proclaimed offender in India and is wanted on charges of murder, attempt to murder, rioting, unlawful assembly and kidnapping. He was sworn in as Minister of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources on 22 November 2019.
Kanagaratnam Sriskandarajah known mononymously as K. S. Raja was a very popular Radio Ceylon radio announcer from Sri Lanka. He was popular with his audiences both in Sri Lanka and Tamil Nadu, India. During the course of the Sri Lankan civil war, he was killed by EPDP by poison in 1994
Nadarajah Raviraj was a Sri Lankan lawyer and politician who served as Mayor of Jaffna in 2001 and a Member of Parliament for Jaffna District from 2001 to 2006. A member of the Tamil National Alliance, he was shot dead on 10 November 2006 in Colombo.
Sarathambal Saravanbavananthatkurukal or better known as Sarathambal was a minority Sri Lankan Tamil woman who was gang raped and killed on 28 December 1999. This became an internationally known incident of the Sri Lankan Civil War.
Uthayan is a Tamil language Sri Lankan daily newspaper published by New Uthayan Publication (Private) Limited, part of the Uthayan Group of Newspapers. It was founded in 1985 and is published from Jaffna. Its sister newspaper is the Colombo-based Sudar Oli. Uthayan was the only newspaper published from Jaffna which did not cease publication due to the civil war. The newspaper has been attacked several times; a number of its staff have been murdered by paramilitary groups and other forces, and it regularly receives threats.
Thiyagarajah Maheswaran was a Tamil Sri Lankan Member of Parliament (MP) from Colombo. He belonged to the main opposition United National Party and was a critic of Mahinda Rajapakse government's war against Tamil rebels. A former Hindu Affairs minister and a former Member of Parliament for Colombo District, he escaped an assassination attempt on the final day of the 2004 election campaign in Colombo. He was assassinated by a gunman on 1 January 2008 while worshipping at a Hindu temple with his family.
The Jaffna hospital massacre occurred on October 21 and 22, 1987, during the Sri Lankan Civil War, when troops of the Indian Peace Keeping Force entered the premises of the Jaffna Teaching Hospital in Jaffna, Sri Lanka, an island nation in South Asia, and killed between 60 and 70 patients and staff. The rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, the government of Sri Lanka, and independent observers such as the University Teachers for Human Rights and others have called it a massacre of civilians.
Jaffna Electoral District is one of the 22 multi-member electoral districts of Sri Lanka created by the 1978 Constitution of Sri Lanka. The district covers the administrative districts of Jaffna and Kilinochchi in the Northern province. The district currently elects 9 of the 225 members of the Sri Lankan Parliament and had 529,239 registered electors in 2014. The district is Sri Lanka's Electorate Number 10.
Kandasamy Iyer Balanadarajah Iyer (Balanadarasan), also known as Sinna Bala, (6 June 1957 – 16 August 2004) was a Sri Lankan Tamil activist, writer and poet who was a media secretary and a senior member of the Eelam People's Democratic Party.
Paranirupasingam Devakumaran also spelt as Thevakumar was a minority Sri Lankan Tamil Television journalist who reported for the Maharaja Television which operated MTV English, Sirasa TV in Sinhala and Sakthi TV in Tamil in Jaffna. He and his friend Mahendran Varadan were hacked to death in Navanthurai near Jaffna on 28 May 2008 while he was on his way home by the paramilitary EPDP.
Freedom of the press in Sri Lanka is guaranteed by Article 14(1)(a) of the Constitution of Sri Lanka which gives every citizen "the freedom of speech and expression including publication". But under some government's there was widespread suppression of the media, particularly those critical of those governments. Sri Lanka is ranked 146 out of 180 countries in Reporters Without Borders's Press Freedom Index for 2022
