Originally published by the Voice of America (www.voanews.com).
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June 8, 2007

Sri Lanka's Supreme Court Halts Tamil Evictions
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http://enews.voanews.com/t?ctl=17C270B:A6F02AD83191E160DCEA347C4FD1482B9574F7DCC14957C0 Move follows
sudden deportation of minority group to island's war-torn north and
east Sri Lanka's Supreme Court has halted evictions of ethnic Tamils
from the country's capital - after police suddenly deported members of
the minority group to the island's war-torn north and east. VOA's
Steve Herman reports from New Delhi.







Sri Lankan Human Rights activists shout slogans during a protest
against the eviction of ethnic Tamils in Colombo, 08 Jun 2007The Sri
Lankan Supreme Court on Friday immediately stopped the forced
evictions of ethnic Tamils in Colombo. Police in recent days have
rounded up and expelled several hundred Tamils from the capital,
busing most of them back to the front lines in the north and east,
where separatist Tamils are waging a military campaign against the Sri
Lankan military.

The director of Sri Lanka's National Peace Council, Jehan Perera, says
the police action has sent a wave of fear through the capital's
250,000 Tamils.

"They're scared and concerned and hurt," he said. "Just because you're
a Tamil who has come from out of Colombo you can be picked up in this
manner and just packed off. The government is breaking the laws of
this country, and I think this is borne out by the fact that the
Supreme Court has stayed the evictions, pending its final decision."

The Supreme Court says it will hear the case on June 22 and has told
police not to carry out further evictions before then.

Military spokesman Prasad Samarasinghe says authorities were forced to
act after recent suicide bomb attacks in the capital by separatist
Tamil rebels.

"The police have found out that cheap lodges in Colombo are occupied
by the terrorist suspects," he said. "It's not ethnic cleansing or
things like that because more than one third of the population in
Colombo are Tamils."

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam have been fighting since 1972 for
a homeland separate from the south, where Sinhalese are the main
ethnic group. More than 5,000 people have been killed just in the past
19 months.


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