Category Archives: human rights

Former Military Officers in Political Party Campaigns in Sri Lanka

Shamindra Ferdinando, in The Island, 28 February 2024 where the title runs thus: “National Elections: Ex-military Factor”... with highighting imposed by The Editor, Thuppahi

With the presidential election scheduled for later this year, political parties represented in Parliament have stepped up efforts to forge alliances.

Ex-military personnel at a rally organized by the JVP last year (pic courtesy JVP)

In terms of the Constitution, presidential elections will have to be conducted between Sept 18 and Oct 18, 2024. The last presidential election was held in Nov 2019.

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BBC on Alexei Navalny’s Death in Russian Custody

TRY https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/alexei-navalny-the-death-of-putins-biggest-critic/id1715473158?i=1000645632931

Russia’s most significant opposition leader for the past decade, Alexei Navalny, has died in an Arctic Circle jail, the prison service has said. What does that mean for the future of Russia, its opposition movement and its leader, Vladimir Putin?

In this special episode of The Global Story, Gabriel Gatehouse speaks to the BBC’s Chief International Correspondent Lyse Doucet, Olga Ivshina from the BBC’s Russian Service, and Francis Scarr, who covers Russian media for BBC Monitoring.

The Global Story brings you trusted insights from BBC experts around the world. We’re keen to hear from you, wherever you are in the world. #TheGlobalStory We want your ideas, stories and experiences to help us understand and tell The Global Story. Email us at theglobalstory@bbc.com You can also message us or leave a voice note on WhatsApp on +44 330 123 9480.

Today’s podcast was made by Peter Goffin and Miriam Quayyum. The technical producer was Mike Regaard. The assistant editor is Sergi Forcada Freixas and the senior news editor is Jonathan Aspinwall.

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BBC: Alexei Navalny Dies in Putin’s Arctic Jail

APPLENEWS conveying BBC Podcast  = https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/alexei-navalny-the-death-of-putins-biggest-critic/id1715473158?i=1000645632931

Russia’s most significant opposition leader for the past decade, Alexei Navalny, has died in an Arctic Circle jail, the prison service has said. What does that mean for the future of Russia, its opposition movement and its leader, Vladimir Putin?

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Tamil Women at War as ‘Birds of Freedom’ in the LTTE Cause

Vindhya Buthpitiya: “How to Capture Birds of Freedom: Picturing Tamil Women at War,” Trans Asia Photography (2023) 13 (1)  … derived from ………………………………………… https://doi.org/10.1215/21582025-10365016 … with the aid of my Aloysian mate KK De Silva; whilr the highlighting is my imposition.

 Abstract: This article examines the uses of images of women fighters of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam during and after the Sri Lankan civil war (1983–2009) to explore the contrasting mobilizations of visual representations of Tamil women cadres, focusing on the cultivation and framing of contradictory nationalist imaginaries by competing ethnic and state actors. In northern Sri Lanka, portraits of gun-bearing women fighters were wielded to signal revolutionary possibilities for the future of the Tamil nation-state as well as to inform the political socialization of its hopeful citizens. Meanwhile, images of Tamil women cadres were cast as gendered and ethnicized threats by the Sri Lankan state in what constituted a calculated form of visual ethno-political othering and weaponization. This article reflects on the ways in which such appropriations exacerbated the political precarity of and the denial of victimhood to Tamil women.

Malathy was the First Tamil Tigress to face death for the Tamiil for the Tamil Cause

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Pro-Palestinian Rallies on US Campuses

Daniel Arkin, in NBC News,  26 October 2023  where the title runs thus: “Israel-Hamas war continues to roil American colleges, sparking walkouts”

The war has raised the temperature on some campuses, giving rise to social environments that mirror the country’s similarly polarized politics. Dozens of U.S. colleges and universities are increasingly riven by tensions over the war between Israel and Hamas, offering a window into how a rising generation perceives the conflict in the Middle East and the U.S. government’s foreign policy in the region.

                    Pro-Palestinian demonstrators protest at Columbia University in New York on Oct. 12… Yuki Iwamura / AP  

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Facing Hermon: Palestinian History 1918-to-Today’s Holocaust

Blackjack Bibi ….  see TPS Note at the end

I won’t comment on the Chris Hedges video. I was more interested in Dickie Hermon’s comment (see https://thuppahis.com/2023/12/19/chris-hedges-mea-culpa-on-palestine-for-the-westernworld/ ).

The first thing to be said is that it is unfair and unreasonable to insinuate that Hedges is a holocaust denier. It is wrong to suggest with a guess that he might be, and it is clear Dickie has no evidence to support that claim. He is on weak ground here.

Richard Hermon in https://thuppahis.com/2023/12/19/chris-hedges-mea-culpa-on-palestine-for-the-westernworld/

Michael, Please see my previous comments! on this subject .My position is clear These guys are “SPIN DOCTORS” putting their own spin on what they want to put across .in 1948 when Israel declared itself a state after the UN had given its approval and History states that the Arab nations all declared war on Israel and attacked it ,this Person states that the Zionists attacked the Palestinians ,at that point his veracity went out the window .I guess that he would also say that the Holocaust was Israeli propaganda.
with my warmest regards
Dickie HERMON

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Chris Hedges MEA CULPA on Palestine for the Western World

 

Chris Hedges Pulitzer-prize winning journalist, best-selling author & activist……. “When those who are occupied refuse to submit, when they continue to resist we drop all our pretence of our civilising mission and unleash as in Gaza”.

 

****  ****

 

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Professor Antony Anghie receives International Accolade

Item sent to TPS by Hemal Gurusinghe va Victor Melder  …. while highlighting has been imposed by The Editor.**

Professor Antony Anghie recently received the 2023 Manley O. Hudson Medal from the American Society of International Law (ASIL). This award is given to a distinguished person for outstanding contributions to scholarship and achievement in international law. This award is ASIL’s highest honor.

Professor Anghie’s scholarship, teaching and insights have had a profound and transformative effect on the field of international law and international legal scholarship.“I have taught at many law schools in the United States and around the world, some of them very famous,” Anghie said. “What I have learned from this experience is that it is only at the University of Utah that I could have done my  cholarship. I am immensely grateful to the law school and the special traditions of support and collegiality we have created here, and I feel very fortunate to be a part of this community.”

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The Palestine-Israel Conflict: Its Political and Legal Underpinnings

Rohini Hensman:  “The Political and Legal Underpinnings of the Palestine-Israel Conflict,” in New Politics, 2023 …. ……………………… https://www.academia.edu/110094670/The_Political_and_Legal_Underpinnings_of_the_Palestine_Israel_Conflict?email_work_card=view-paper

On 7 October 2023, Palestinian militant group Hamas launched a massive attack on Israeli territory, killing 1405 people including over 300 soldiers according to the Israeli state, although a month later the death toll miraculously came down to 1200. The Israeli state has responded by bombing the Gaza Strip, in which Hamas has its headquarters and over 2.3 million civilians have their homes, starving inhabitants of food, water, medicines and fuel. But why did this happen? And what can be done about it? On these questions, there is no agreement whatsoever.

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The Humanitarian Social Commitment of Lakshman Wickremesinghe

Professor Rajiva Wijesinha, item taken from Daily News, 24 October 2023, ….. with highlighting imposed by The Editor, Thuppahi

 Bishop Lakshman Wickremesinghe died on October 23 forty years ago. He was my uncle, and I had a special affinity with him with regard to both intellect and emotions. When I came back from Oxford, where he had studied a couple of decades before me, he was the family member who was most supportive of my resignation on the issue of the deprivation of Mrs. Bandaranaike’s Civic Rights, for unlike most members of the elite he understood early on what that meant for the future of democracy, a blight that has never left us since it was followed by a premature Presidential election, the ghastly referendum, and then the attacks first on Supreme Court Judges and then on Tamils.

one moment during Black July 1983

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