The Sri Lankan Civil War was a civil war fought in Sri Lanka from 1983 to 2009. Beginning on 23 July 1983, there was an intermittent insurgency against the government by the Velupillai Prabhakaran led Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. The LTTE fought to create an independent Tamil state called Tamil Eelam in the north-east of the island, due to the continuous discrimination and violent persecution against Sri Lankan Tamils by the Sinhalese dominated Sri Lankan Government.
The Tamil National Alliance is a political alliance in Sri Lanka that represents the country's Sri Lankan Tamil minority. It was formed in October 2001 by a group of moderate Tamil nationalist parties and former 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 which selected 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 Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF) is a series of Sri Lankan political parties and a former militant separatist group.
The Eelam People's Democratic Party (EPDP) is a political party and a pro-government paramilitary organization in Sri Lanka. It is led by its founder Douglas Devananda.
The Allaipiddy massacre or Allaipiddy murders refers to the May 13, 2006 killing of 13 minority Tamil civilians in separate incidents in three villages in 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 1996
Nadarajah Raviraj was a Sri Lankan Tamil lawyer and politician. He was 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 newspapers 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 critic of Rajapakse government's war against Tamil rebels. He was the former Hindu Affairs minister and a former Member of Parliament for Colombo District, escaped an assassination attempt on the final day of the 2004 election campaign in Colombo. He was assassinated by a gunshot on 1 January 2008 while worshipping at a Hindu temple with his family. Number of other devotees were also injured. The injured gunman has been apprehended and is in police custody in a hospital.
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 60–70 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.
Kandasamy Iyer Balanadarajah Iyer (Balanadarasan), also known as Sinna Bala, 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.
Local elections were held in Sri Lanka on 8 August 2009 for two local councils in the north of the country: Jaffna Municipal Council and Vavuniya Urban Council. They were the first elections held in the country since the government declared victory in the 26-year-old civil war on 18 May 2009. They were also the first local elections held in the Northern Province in more than 11 years. Both towns had been under government control for many years. The government won the Jaffna Municipal Council contest by securing 13 of the 23 seats. The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) won the Vavuniya Urban Council contest by securing 5 of the 11 seats. Turnout was very low in Jaffna (22%) but it was better in Vavuniya (52%).
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". Despite this there is widespread suppression of the media, particularly those critical of the government. Sri Lanka is ranked 165 out of 180 countries in Reporters Without Borders's Press Freedom Index for 2014. Freedom House has judged the Sri Lankan press to be not free. During the civil war Sri Lanka was one of the most dangerous places to be a journalist. The civil war ended in May 2009 but, according to Reporters Without Borders, murders, physical attacks, kidnappings, threats and censorship continues and that senior government officials, including the defence secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, are directly implicated.
