 | |
| Formation | 2009 |
|---|---|
| Purpose | Political Movement |
| Headquarters | Chennai, Tamil Nadu |
| Fields | Tamil Eelam Struggle, Tamil Nationalism, Human Rights Protection, Rationalism, Communism, Environmentalism |
Key people | Thirumurugan Gandhi, Praveen Kumar, Lena Kumar |
| Website | may17iyakkam |
May 17 Movement is a prominent Tamil National Civil rights movement fighting for the justice for the Tamil Genocide in Tamil Eelam & the rights of Tamils in Tamil Nadu.
May 17 Movement was formed in May 2009 during the war in Sri Lanka when thousands of Tamils were killed. It was founded by activist Thirumurugan Gandhi in 2009. It is a Tamil nationalism movement based in Tamil Nadu, works for Worldwide Tamil people and caste annihilation. This is the only active movement actively involved in the exposing the controversial TFA(Trade Facilitation Agreement) policy of the World Trade Organization (WTO) accepted and signed by the Government of India.
May 17 movement consistently advocates for the liberation of Tamil Eelam, a separate state of Eelam Tamils. It has also spoken in the Geneva human rights sessions in the United Nations (UN) since 2015, in support of the nations without states, indigenous peoples and communities which have faced war crimes against the imperial forces. Led by Thirumurugan Gandhi, it has represented the Tamil civil society in Permanent Peoples' Tribunal for Sri Lanka in Bremen, Germany in 2013.
May 17 Movement coordinates and Gathers all the people at Chennai Marina beach (Tamizhar Kadal) to conduct the candleLight Vigil on 3rd Sunday on the Month of May every Year to mark the remembrance of 2009 Tamil Eezham Genocide. Every Year leaders from various parties, and peoples from various demography across Tamil Nadu gathers for this event. Regardless of their political differences, all the leaders participate and mourn for the genocide happened for tamils and unanimously raise slogan for Liberation of Tamil Eezham as the only solution, and demand for the Referendum for Eezham.
The Sri Lankan Civil War was a civil war fought in Sri Lanka from 1983 to 2009. Beginning on 23 July 1983, it 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 Lanka government.
Velupillai Prabhakaran was an Eelam Tamil revolutionary. Prabhakaran was a major figure of Tamil nationalism, and the founder and leader of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The LTTE was a militant organization that sought to create an independent Tamil state in the north and east of Sri Lanka in reaction to the oppression of the country's Tamil population by the Sri Lankan government. Under his direction, the LTTE undertook a military campaign against the Sri Lankan government for more than 25 years.
Eelam is the native Tamil name for the South Asian island now known as Sri Lanka. Eelam is also the Tamil name for the spurge, toddy and gold.
Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi formerly known as the Dalit Panthers of India or the Dalit Panthers Iyyakkam is an Indian social movement and political party that seeks to combat caste based discrimination, active in the state of Tamil Nadu. The party also has a strong emphasis on Tamil nationalism. Its chairman is Thol. Thirumavalavan, a lawyer from Chennai and its general secretary is the writer Ravikumar.
Tamil Eelam is a proposed independent state that many Tamils in Sri Lanka and the Eelam Tamil diaspora aspire to create in the north and east of Sri Lanka. Large sections of the North-East were under de facto control of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) for most of the 1990s–2000s during the Sri Lankan Civil War. Tamil Eelam, although encompassing the traditional homelands of Eelam Tamils, does not have official status or recognition by world states. The name is derived from the ancient Tamil name for Sri Lanka, Eelam.
Tholkappiyan Thirumavalavan, better known as Thol. Thirumavalavan is a political leader, scholar and activist from the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. He is a Member of Parliament from Chidambaram. Leader and President of Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi. He rose to prominence in the 1990s as a Dalit leader, and formally entered politics in 1999. His political platform centres on ending caste-based discrimination and consequently the caste system. He has also expressed support for Tamil nationalist movements in Sri Lanka.
Tamil nationalism is the ideology which asserts that the Tamil people constitute a nation and promotes the cultural unity of Tamil people. Tamil nationalism is primarily a secular nationalism, that focus on language and homeland. It expresses itself in the form of linguistic purism, nationalism and irredentism, Social equality and Tamil Renaissance.
British Tamils Forum or BTF, is a largest organisation representing the Tamil Community in the United Kingdom. The BTF intends to be the voice of the Tamil Community in the UK by raising the issues on Tamils in UK and to bring awareness to the issues affecting Tamil people in the island of Sri Lanka and around the world. The BTF's work is focused on addressing the root cause to the conflict through an international justice mechanism to bring truth and justice to all victims of war and to bring end to the entrenched culture of impunity in Sri Lanka.
Kumar Muthukumar was an Indian journalist and activist based in the province of Tamil Nadu, who came into prominence when he set himself on fire protesting against the brutal atrocities against the Sri Lankan Tamil people at the peak of civil war in the country. His death instantly triggered widespread strikes, demonstrations and public unrest in the state, most notably the manifestation of popular defiance of the Government of India ban against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, which the people demonstrated carrying flags of Tamil Eelam, placards and images of the LTTE leader V. Prabhakaran in the funeral procession of Muthukumar. Subsequently, 6 more Tamils committed self-immolation in various parts of the globe including India, Malaysia and Switzerland.
Between 2008 and 2009, major protests against the Sri Lankan Civil War took place in several countries around the world, urging national and world leaders and organisations to take action on bringing a unanimous cease fire to the Sri Lankan Civil War, which had taken place for twenty-six years. Tamil diaspora populations around the world expressed concerns regarding the conduct of the civil war in the island nation of Sri Lanka. The civil war, which took place between the Sri Lankan Army and the separatist group Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam is believed to have killed over 100,000 civilians. Protesters and critics of the Sri Lankan government that triggered a culturally based civil war to be a systematic genocide and ethnic cleansing of the Sri Lankan Tamil minority in Sri Lanka.
Between 10 May 2009 and 18 April 2010, a number of unofficial independence referendums were held amongst Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora communities on the independence of Tamil Eelam from Sri Lanka, as reported by Tamil nationalist online newspaper TamilNet.
Visuvanathan Rudrakumaran is the prime minister of the Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam, which aims to realize accountability for crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide committed by Sri Lanka against the Tamil minority and to create a separate Tamil state, called Tamil Eelam in Sri Lanka. He was the former legal advisor to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). By profession he is a lawyer in the United States. He is currently a US citizen and lives in New York City.
Visvanathan Dharmalingam was a Sri Lankan Tamil politician and Member of Parliament.
Naam Tamilar Katchi is a Tamil nationalist party in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu.
The 2013 Anti–Sri Lanka protests are a series of student protests and agitations initiated by the Students Federation for Freedom of Tamil Eelam in Tamil Nadu, India, against war crimes committed against Sri Lankan Tamil people by Sri Lankan army during the Eelam War IV. The protesters demanded that the Government of India vote in support of a United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) resolution censuring the Government of Sri Lanka for war crimes. Some radical groups even demanded the prosecution of the President of Sri Lanka, Mahinda Rajapakse for his role in the alleged genocide of Sri Lankan Tamils. Apart from college students, doctors, film personalities and employees of IT companies also participated in the protests.
Thirumurugan Gandhi is an Indian human rights activist and Geo-Political Commentator noted for founding the May 17 Movement. The movement initially campaigned for the rights and justice for the killings of Eelam Tamil for their separate Tamil Eelam, primarily those affected by the last stages of the Sri Lankan Civil War.
The Tamil Youth Organization (TYO) is an international organization with branches in the UK, Canada, Australia, France, Norway and several other nations. They organize cultural, sports events and also follows a Tamil nationalist approach and helped organize a referendum among the Tamil diaspora and support an independent Tamil Eelam.
The Mullivaikkal Memorial or Mullivaikkal Muttram is a memorial dedicated to the Mullivaikkal massacre, the killings of Tamil civilians during the final phase of the war between Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and Sri Lankan armed forces at Mullivaikkal in 2009. The Mullivaikal Memorial is in the Thanjavur District of the Tamil Nadu state in neighboring India. On 6 November 2013, the inauguration of the Mullivaikal Memorial took place. Tamil leader Pazha Nedumaran and the World Tamil Confederation Trust he heads are the founders.
Mullivaikkal Remembrance Day is a remembrance day observed by Sri Lankan Tamil people to remember those who died in the final stages of the Sri Lankan Civil War. It is held each year on 18 May, the date on which the civil war ended in 2009, and is named after Mullivaikkal, a village on the north-east coast of Sri Lanka which was the scene of the final battle of the civil war.
Contributions to popular culture involving direct reference to the Sri Lankan Tamil community in Indian cinema are listed below. All communities that speak Tamil and originally came from Sri Lanka are included. Tamils of Sri Lanka today are a trans-national minority and are found across the globe. While most films on the topic are made in Tamil cinema, there has also been Malayalam and Hindi content on the area.