yaha palanaya! new government tries to illegally suppress news from north

instead of letting media full freedom to report, so that truth or falseness can be independently verified, or instead of arresting, if illegal, the anti police/military stones throwing, tiger flag hoisting, ltte supporting racist scum in jaffna, ranil's back door government is using every resource of state to suppress and censor news from north. 

even to the point of threatening prosecution of those who report the news.

under what law? in fact, since mahinda removed emergency laws, there is no law under which such a threatened persecution could be conducted, even if the news is false. (news is in fact true).

this very illegal panic response only confirm the truth of these incidents even to skeptics, and inflate their significance. when in fact, incidents in themselves, carried out by few idiotic tamil racists, were of little importance.

so much for yaha palanaya, freedom of information, good governance, etc, etc.

෴

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challenge: name a single real news story that was censored in sri lanka recently

opposition propagandists and terrorist propagandists claim that sri lankans are not informed about what is happening in sri lanka bc news here is censored.

imo that is not so.

it can be argued, that not a single real news story, that would have passed a good editor in any reputable newspaper in west, was censored here.

please prove me wrong if you can.

as i always say to anyone who claims sri lankans are kept in the dark by government, go to the nearest newsstand (there are plenty everywhere ) and just read the headlines. not only real news, but unsubstantiated substandard stories, pro and against government/opposition/whatever are available to anyone. same with other media.

yes there was no story about election commissioner held at gun point on 27th, but that was not censorship, bc that never happened. same with sore loser sarath fonseka being 'under siege' and 'hotel arrest'.



to claim that these rumors were spread bc there was censorship of in mainstream independent media and there is a vacuum of information as one of official online unp/sf propagandists, indi 'padashow' samarajiva', does is false.

far from 'running media center for national security press releases', mainstream media in sl did report the facts truthfully. the false rumors were artificially created and spread on purpose to denigrate and undermine sri lanka and its democracy. indi padashow participated in that effort willingly and knowingly. he is now acting the sore loser like his masters' bc his artificial bubble of clueless hopes have burst.

my challenge to him or any anyone else making the same false claims about censorship : name a single properly substantiated news story that was not published in sri lanka recently in context and in proportion to its news value.

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does that mean there is no censorship in sri lanka? no.

attempts at censorship (mostly ineffective) directed against false anti sri lanka propaganda did and is taking place. government is quite open about it.

government blocked the terrorist propaganda website, tamilnet in 2007. some of those who were spreading false rumors through sms texts in bulk on 25th and 27th clearly aimed at denigrating and undermining sri lanka, national security, and sri lankan democracy at that particular point of time have been arrested. formerly terrorist jvp's propaganda rag lanka raided and shut for a day was due to it publishing an article inimical to national security.

note that there was nothing unconstitutional or illegal in any of government actions. for example, police who raided lanka followed proper legal procedure and were armed with court orders, search warrants, etc. same court also allowed the paper to reopen.

however i would support use of legal force only if these ppl were either intending to use force, conspiring with those who did, or somehow engaging in activities that could very well result in harm to sri lankans (such as disclosing details of intelligence operations as alleged about lanka article). since investigations are continuing we don't know enough to judge specifically about recent actions.

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i personally do not approve any kind of censorship, of news or of propaganda.

i believe in countering false propaganda by exposing the propagandists and their real loyalties to the world with evidence.

that is why when government blocked the terrorist propaganda website, tamilnet, i protested. even though i detest what that website is doing. i also helped literally thousands of ppl to counter the block bc my post is in top 10/20 search results for relevant keywords in google.lk. (btw one of the reasons this blog gets so many visitors is that i have posted lot of practically useful posts in the past).

similarly i have never called for banning corrupt peacenik sanjana hattotuwa's groundviews blog or its predecessor moju. even though both published blatantly untrue terrorist propaganda.

i believe in exposing their lies to sunlight through confronting them with facts and reason. aggressively so.

if the propagandists are allied to terrorists, their pro terrorist connections and lies should be exposed, whether they be tamilnet or groundviews. their racist ideologies and prejudices should be laid bare. eventually truth will triumph. tamilnet has lost all credibility. these days ppl visit it only to know how the terrorist pussies are spinning a particular story, not for facts. moju was deleted by sanjana when the criminal burden of its terrorist parroting lies became too much to sustain. note how sanjana hattotuwa is not maintaining an archive copy of moju site (even though he is maintaining such for various others).

if the propagandists were working to undermine national security and sri lankan democracy, and their actions do not go beyond mere propaganda, i would support and be satisfied with any effort to expose their lies and connections.

so when one of the online unp/sf propagandists, blogger indi 'padashow' samarajiva and same terrorist parrot sanjana hattotuwa' and their suckerboys like dinidu de alwis began to spread false rumors in blogosphere and in twitter on 25th and 27th (complementing their colleagues who were spreading the same lies in bulk offline through sms text etc.) principled thing to do was to expose them for what they are, as i said at the time.

in fact exposure of their lies, hypocrisy, bias and loyalties, based on their actions and facts should continue as long as they continue to engage in propaganda.


to conclude,

there is no news censorship in sri lanka, there was/are legal attempts underway to curb propagandist who may be undermining national security and democracy.

i do not believe in curbing even propagandists as long as they are nothing but propagandists. best way to counter propagandists is to expose them, their connections, and confront them with facts and reason .

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ps
on purely personal scale, with regard to censorship, i have not even called for removal of unp propagandist indi 'padashow' samarajiva's online thuggery against me, conducted through a second hand blog at present, from even kottu.

i have satisfied myself (in addition to documenting his disgusting activity for record purposes) with pointing out the hypocrisy and double standards indi.padashow applies to those who do his dirty work, in contrast to treatment meted out to those who used similar tactics against terrorists. former is encouraged and promoted while latter, like satire site tamilnet.tv, are banned from kottu.

wonder what indi 'padashow' samarajiva's kottu cocoon defenders have to say about this double standard.

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difference a few words make! arrested for internet threats or offensive remarks? + sanjana hattotuwa's silly spin on this

a person named gayan rajapakse was arrested by police for threatening mahinda buffalo yesterday. note the word "threat".

however some ppl chose to report the cause of arrest as "offensive and defamatory comments regarding the president and the secretary of defense". same newspaper (mirror) website in another report filed shortly after, which gave more details like name and hiding place of the person arrested, reported "arrested on charges of having used the internet to threaten president mahinda rajapaksa and defence secretary gotabhaya rajapaksa". also note that the suspect was produced before matale magistrate, who remanded him till 6th .

first storysecond story

i am including the screen captures (click to enlarge) in case the story disappears from mirror website.


i personally think it is rather stupid to arrest all ppl who threaten the president. though there is nothing wrong in police investigating all threats of violence.

given we don't know the exact details of the case and severity of the threat, all we can wish for is that the correct legal process is followed. and that seems to be happening.


what happens when obama is threatened
meanwhile it is worthwhile to to note how ppl who "threaten" the president of usa are treated.
these stories pop up almost every other week. i am just posting a few (most recent and some connected to internet and absurd) .

• airport guard accused of threatening obama
• man arrested and held without bail for "sending racist, profanity-laced e-mail threatening to kill president barack obama and his family."
• facebook poll on killing obama was investigated and juvenile responsible was not arrested bc he was deemed not threatening.
• man arrested after two threats were posted on the internet.
• secret service and police investigates man for “abort obama, not the unborn” bumper sticker.

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now how do you think terrorist parroting former peacenik ngo crowd is spinning this?
well most of them were enjoying the sunday peacefully. they will no doubt do their paid spin job today or tomorrow (today being poya)

but sanjana hathutuwa treats his hack job on behalf of racists who support tamil tiger terrorists with a passion and ignores holidays. he will not let any opportunity to smear and slander sri lanka pass. so here is a screengrab (click to enlarge) of what he wrote in ict4peace blog which like the racist hate mongering groundviews blog is run by himand a comment thereof course anyone with sense can see what he deliberately but stupidly left out. (btw notice how he comments on his own post. lol). he is as always ignoring the facts that does not suit his agenda.

i posted a comment pointing out his "cleverness" in not clarifying it was a threat not just offensive remarks that caused the arrest. but i doubt given his past intolerance of opposing views whether it will pass the censorship this time.

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this blog's twitter - http://twitter.com/llibertarian

paikiasothy saravanamuttu a "consistent, courageous, anti-racist voice"? facts say otherwise

in fact his public and substantiated actions indicate that he is on the contrary a consistent craven racist. and in accordance with those characteristics he acted as a lobbyist and apologist for ltte terrorist murderers.

i consider him a contemptible criminal; if anyone disagrees, they are free to read this post and dispute the reality and meaning of his actions i will highlight below. unlike others i do not censor anyone here.

sanjana hattotuwa's (cpa affiliated) groundviews blog which has been spouting out racist hate in one post after another with nothing to back their assertions, claims in its latest post that ngo centre of policy alternatives' (cpa) executive director, pakiasothy saravanamuttu, is "one of sri lanka’s most consistent, courageous, anti-racist voices". lol. btw the post is by one qadri ismail "associate professor of english at the university of minnesota." as usual with that site most of its approved writers and readers who are allowed to comment tend to be sri lankans living aboard.

[note- pakiasothy saravanamuttu recently alleged that he has received death threats. i do not approve any kind of illegitimate violence and condemn these threats, if real. however i remain highly skeptical about these threats. more like an attempt to get some attention and undeserved sympathy and money now that the racist cause he championed so consistently has lost.
i also condemn any effort by cpa, saravanamuttu,and others to link those peacefully but forcefully opposing their racist contemptible stands on many issues to these alleged threats.]


bebunking groundviews' claims with facts
in opposition to grundviews' claim i will list only a few of his many, many, many, racist, anti-democratic, anti- justice, anti human rights, anti-freedom, actions here bc even those few will be enough to justify my first statements here.

• paikiasothy saravanamuttu consistently favored appeasement of terrorist tamil tigers, advocating giving these violent murderous racist pussies political power over millions, instead of supporting efforts to defeat them, with violence if needs be. is that courageous? is that anti racist?
• paikiasothy saravanamuttu wanted sri lanka to accept terrorist ltte as the sole representative of tamils in order for appeasement talks to begin, and spoke against those who opposed such a pre-condition for talks. nothing can be more racist and more anti-democratic, anti-justice, anti human rights, anti-freedom, than this claim of sole representatives status of murderers. but he wanted sri lanka to accept it. is that courageous and anti racist? is that anything but down right contemptible?
• he lobbied here and abroad on behalf of terrorist ltte. among many such lobbying efforts i will point to his opposition and attempts to prevent european union ban on tamil tigers. among other things ban made it a crime to collect money on behalf of ltte, which money was used by the terrorists to kill, oppress, and terrorize, sri lankans regardless of their ethnicity, and to fight sri lankan government's military. but he opposed the ban and gave blatantly spurious reasons for his stand on the issue. isn't that criminal for a sri lankan? is that anything but down right contemptible?

as i said before there are many many more such actions by him and his other ngo peacenik colleagues. and like those listed above they too are substantiated by public record during periods of their occurrence. but those posted above will be quite enough to oppose groundviews claims.

he of course has a right to engage in any non violent advocacy he wants. others similarly have a right to point out that what he advocates is racist and contemptible.

does anyone dispute the facts? they are free to do that here, if they can.

or will his defenders run from truth? and attack me for restating well known public facts that they cannot dispute?

let us see.

෴

ps
i am not providing direct link to groundviews bc of two things,
1/ my comments are consistently and arbitrarily censored there regardless of content.
2/ sanjana hattotuwa deleted his old blog moju when it became clear that his posting of ltte propaganda and other falsehood by ltte fronts such as tro, could well make him and his ngo infoshare criminally liable, not to mention embarrassing and indefensible when challenged. i would not be surprised if groundviews follows suit. to avoid links from getting stranded like my old moju links, i link to a google search. readers can then at least read the google cache or similar.

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here is the comment i posted to groundviews post i referred above. it remains censored at the time of this posting.

paikiasothy saravanamuttu he is a consistent craven racist.
he was a lobbyist and apologist for ltte terrorist murderers.
here are just 3 of his many crimes against human rights of us sri lankans .
he wanted sri lanka to appease terrorists
he wanted sri lanka to accept terrorist ltte as sole representative of tamils in order for appeasement talks to begin, and spoke against those who opposed such a condition
he lobbied against eu banning terrorist ltte . so that it can continue to collect funds there to kill sri lankans

of course there are more but will stop now bc that is enough to justify my first statement. evidence all these things are publicly documented.

nothing can be more racist , nothing can be more anti-democratic , anti- justice , anti human rights, anti-freedom, etc .

will substantiated truth be censored again here from challenging falsehoods of racist ?

to interrupt the "yes! great idea!" chorus to "kottu print"

indi.ca has put forward the idea of publishing some of the posts in sri lankan kottu blog aggregator (which he administer and own) as a section of sunday leader newspaper.

almost all responses to this idea published at the time of writing were in agreement and failed to make the obvious objections. bloggers who wrote them should ask themselves why they failed to object? don't leave all objections to authority to be made by a "pariah" (to the kottu cocoon) like me, who bc of other quarrels may be suspected of mixed motives.

i wrote a comment at about 11 am, with a small addition about an hour later. those as usual have not appeared (as owner of blog indi.padashow has a perfect right to not publish my comments and only publish yes comments if that is what he wants). by same logic i have a perfect right to taunt him for wanting only yes comments, as i did on twitter. lol
btw here are my personal twitter account and this blog's twitter account. for more information on them go here.

(update: blogger rehani in comment with time stamp 2009-08-17 12:13:18 ( few min after my witter taunt ) has made some of the points i made)

but since i think points i made there were valid (imo) and perhaps need general consumption i will make them here in a post (i will also publish the original unedited comments at the bottom as well, though they basically say the same.)
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bad idea!

it is a bad idea to publish blog posts created for a new medium on old failing newspaper medium.

one of results will be curtailing of new modes of expression so that they fit in with the restrictions of old medium.

i am not just speaking of non availability of multi media formats that most blog posts incorporate, though that should also be noted.

publishing for a newspaper will involve editors, editorial policies, and style guides (don't know whether leader has them but most newspapers do) both explicit and implicit. blog posts that will be published will be included or excluded and edited according to those policies, whatever indi says now. blogs on the other hand allow bloggers to express their ideas, reflections, opinions, satire, whatever,... without restraint, using whatever style they want.

but so what? you might object; ppl who keep on writing in a manner deemed unsuitable by editors of newspaper will not lose anything .they will still have the blog while ppl who conform will have another medium of expression. (and let us not forget that lot of bloggers can be classed as failed or wanna be newspaper writers. they will welcome the opportunity.)

yes. but i am not objecting to this on behalf of any of those ppl, but as a reader and appreciator of blogs (from world over) in contrast to newspapars. when ppl conform to newspaper restrictions their writing will change, and their readers will lose. we should also note that as a medium, blogs have been immensely successful and newspapers are failing. mainly bc readers do not get what they want from newspapers.

it is a bit like comparing a free market economy with a planned regulated economy, favored by socialists. in one side there is free unrestricted competition, and readers will decide. what ppl want to read will last or will find niche markets/readers. on the other side, decision will be with editors who will favor what they think their newspaper readers want to read.

in other words, if this idea is successful (a big if), for a time (best it can hope for), and lot of bloggers try to conform (as they have a right to do) to inevitable explicit and implicit restrictions, in order to see themselves in print (and/or to get the money) the blog readers will lose. sri lankan blogosphere and ultimately sri lanka will be poorer for it.

we should encourage new medium to its full potential, instead of restricting it to limits of an old medium.

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i have some further objections

i doubt whether anyone with any decent principles will want to get published in sunday leader newspaper. that is a paper that made its name through slander, blackmail, and all sort of other dirty stuff. it is also failing, with relatively few advertisements (bc of limited and falling circulation).
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it is already possible to get bloggers to publish if anyone wants them in newspapers; ask them! if a newspapers want blog posts as articles they should contact the specific writers concerned and ask for the posts to be rewritten to fit that medium. simple. btw bloggers who agree to this should be paid the normal rate not some low rate.
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the top 10 at kottu (one of the proposed selective criteria) can be easily manipulated.

this happened to one of my posts in feb 2007, ironically on the subject of kottu (which generated other posts in other blogs) when someone (for reasons unknown) sent my post to top of the list in a clearly artificial way. this was confirmed by log in my blog. (btw i informed all concerned through email as it was occurring).

while such manipulations were not repeated for my posts (yes my posts do sometimes end up in list still. but surprisingly that is probably bc some ppl read them in spite of their boring length it seems), all indications are that problem was not fixed (even though the fix is pretty simple). the kottu list can still be manipulated. in fact if there is an open permission, this can be demonstrated by sending any random post to the top of list.

so this selective criteria is a no-no.
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how to implement this bad idea to least objections.
in case these ppl are determined to implement this bad idea, here are some steps that must be taken.

1/ the editor of some sort has to make a selection to avoid manipulation.

2/ bloggers must be asked for consent and allowed to reedit their own articles to conform to old media format.

3/ they should be published with disclaimer/description like the following
"these articles are blog posts of note that appeared on kottu aggregator in past week as selected by editor and published with consent and editing by original writers".

these step will mitigate some objections and will be truthful to boot (rather than pretending they are the popular posts or true reflection of sri lankan blogosphere etc).

but to repeat, this is a bad idea to begin with.

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here are the original censored comments.
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not a good idea

bad to publish blog posts created for a new medium on an old failing newspaper medium.
( quite apart from being published in one specific newspaper, which is short on ads=circulation, and which made a name through lies and blackmails and other such stuff. not a place to be seen for some ppl with principles ) .

one of results will be curtailing of new modes of expressions so that it fits in with the old restrictions of a failing medium ( i can see that some of the comments above already trending to such a policy )

if newspaper wants newpaper articles they should contact the specific writers concerned and ask for article rewritten to fit that medium (and make sure to pay the normal rate btw)
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also the top ten posts at kottu can be easily manipulated . as happened to one of my posts,(in feb 2007, ironically on the subject of kottu, to points made in which indi here sort of replied ) when someone ( for reasons unknown ) sent it to top of the list in a clearly artificial way as was confirmed by log in my blog . (btw i informed all concerned through email etc ).

while such manipulations has not repeated to my posts later( tough posts do some times end up in list) , all indications are that this was not fixed ( even though the fix for this is pretty simple ) , and the kottu list can still be manipulated .

if there is an open permission, this can be demonstrated by sending any random post to the top .

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to add a small point to what was already written (where? here is to hoping that comment will reappear !) , specifically requesting articles to be reedited takes care of some problems.
a disclaimer/description to the effect -"these articles are blog posts of note that appeared on kottu aggregator in past week as selected by editor and published with consent and editing by original writers"- or some such will cover most objections .and will be truthful to boot ( rather than pretending they are the popular posts or true reflection of sri lankan blogosphere etc .

vic issues an open invitation to indi samarajeeva and sanjana hattotuwa to answer some questions

voice in colombo blog has issued an open invitation to indi samarajeeva and sanjana hattotuwa to answer some questions. very good ones too. pl read.
questions, few and clear, deal with their championing of mano ganeshan, censorship on kottu, and sanjana hattotuwa's moral equalizations.

will they respond?

so far indi has responded.
good for him. but imo in a pretty lame way and is evasive regarding the questions. but you can judge for yourself.

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terrorists' "ceasefire" while holding sri lankans hostage, is no ceasefire but an act of aggression

as usual lefty liberal "useful idiots" in the international media, and racist politicians pandering to tamil diaspora groups led by ltte fronts in their constituencies, are buying the line thrown at them by tamil tiger terrorists uncritically.

anyone with modicum of common sense would have seen thorough the absurdity and obvious "spin"of this so called unilateral declaration of ceasefire by ltte terrorist pussies. how does holding innocent sri lankans by the thousands as human shields, not an act of aggression? but they bought it.

after buying the "fake ceasefire" of terrorists at face value, these editors and politicians want pressure to be applied to sri lanka government to reciprocate with a ceasefire of its own.

in reality, without spin, what they ask amount to sri lanka government giving breathing space to an armed criminal gang, called ltte, holding sri lankans as human shields, when they are on the verge military defeat. a criminal gang, we must never forget ( as these editors and politicians are all too ready to forget), with a well documented record of committing the most vicious atrocities imaginable.

they will never say or write such absurdities about americans or british but they as racists (even though they will deny being racist ) feel no hesitancy about writing that stuff about sri lankan government. did they urge a ceasefire with pirates holding hostage? or al queda or taliban? no and they were right then. pirates, terrorists, and armed criminals, should not be allowed to get their way anywhere in the world. these racist editors and politicians' double standards based solely on race is clear. they have done similar things in the past and will do so again in the future.

call them out. if you see such absurdities, whether it be in nearly bankrupt new york times, or in the british mag the economist, or any other place, call them out and say what you think of this kind of sloppy racist totally unprofessional so called journalism, and political pandering. never mind about getting censored, attacked, or ignored, when calling them out, bc the msg will get to them eventually even if they do not want to admit it. there may even be few decent ppl left in those places who still respect truth. anyway we should not and will not stand by while this kind of bullshit takes place.

government should move forward in its effort to defeat ltte's military capability and leadership (the most moral thing to do at this point) and should decide its military tactics based on their effectiveness against ltte and ability to minimize inevitable deaths among civilians held as human shields, but certainly not on what these racist editors and politicians say.

as for racist editors and politicians - drop your fake sheepskin sympathy and go back to your racist wolf holes and leave us free to create a sri lanka free of of ltte terrorist horrors.

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sl's cocoon bloggers ban another blogger ... over women's underwear or something

that small part of sri lankan blogosphere where dead arguments and cliché are kept alive with lukewarm prose and mutual back massages, where slandering of sl military is ok while soiling of indi padashow's bottom due to well deserved kicks cause a great fluttering of wails and shrieks, where in short, everything smells of mothballs, has succeeded in getting yet another blogger banned from kottu.

cause of it seems to be some sort of silly (as usual) argument between the indi.padashow's suckerboys network and one nibras bawa about some women's clothing or something. it seems that (again as usual) whole thing, through clicking and rubbing of each other wrong and right way developed into a narcissistic web of petty blog posts.

untangling the now thoroughly stained and stinking cocoon silk, would be as difficult as making sense of jarndyce and jarndyce in bleak house. so do not even attempt it unless you want to get cocooned for life ( indeed, you have to use the internet's cocoons, the caches, to access some of the deleted posts).

(btw their self absorption is such that they consider their small corner of sl blogosphere, "the blogosphere" and refer to it and to themselves as such in all seriousness. eg this utterly petty squabble is referred to as "the blogosphere vs nibras bawa" or similar. could anything be more against the spirit of internet? also the drummerboy first these days among the puckered lips, was reportedly "leading the blogosphere" in this ... er fight. even megalomaniac terrorist big pussy must be impressed.)

anyway nibras bawa seems to have got the better of it due to his better sniffing ability, so the suckerboys went in a huff to their idol indi.padashow and puffed, and got nibras bawa banned from kottu .

indi is covering up the results of suckerboy stimulation using a fig leaf about kottu terms prohibiting revealing of blogger identities. (btw indi demands that nibras bawa limit himself to outing indi. lol. funny that. someone might take those words,literally, one of these days). you can also see some of the suckerboys bobbing their heads in gratitude underneath in the comment section of the fig leaf post. ( as for my comment see pps below).

anyway this fig leaf will be adequate, if consistently used.
but he forgets to mention that by the same count he should ban his primary blog, indi.ca (he is still in denial about his (part?) authorship of padashow.wordpress. so i am not referring to that here) which attacked me using my real name ( as i have said from the first i like to keep my name private but give it to anyone who asks on a reciprocal basis).

when will these ppl ( both indi and his suckerboys ) understand the meaning of word hypocrisy ? never perhaps.

they will continue to live in the self created cocoon where they are protected from reality, honesty and truth (all of which can be bitter sometimes). they find sniffing mothballs and fantasizing in cocoon silk less risky, i suppose.

meanwhile, all other readers of blogs, who prefer fresh fruit and red meat to dead moths, better start using feed readers ( google reader highly recommended ).

෴

ps
i do expect to be banned from kottu myself one of these days.
while only about 10-15% (on blog posting days, otherwise 1-2%) of my readers come from kottu, that is still too large given the absolute numbers involved. so put this blog's feed in your feed readers if you came here from kottu.

pps
btw i left the following comment (comment-233014) in indi's blog but as usual in recent months he has censored it (as of now) . he has a perfect right to do as owner of blog .

man, these cocooned bloggers of sl ( about 10% of sl blogospshere at most, though more in kottu since majority of sl bloggers are deliberately excluded from it ) are doing their best to keep alive a dead stale arguments that concerns nobody but each other .

everyone involved and their blogs now smell of dead mothballs.
ppl who are tired the this petty self absorption are invited to read a fresh blog with red meat (and delicious bitter sweet fruits) in it (like mine ) :-)
and to use a feed reader instead of kottu. ( google reader highly recommended )

anyway this new exclusion give rise to interesting questions
is indi going to throw this blog out of kottu?.after all he used my real name (which i like to keep private but give to anyone on a reciprocal basis) to attack me in this blog .
hypocrisy anyone?

i expect this comment will censored as all my recent comments ( afraid of the truth ? btw blog owner has a perfect right censor, but censorship it is ) . and may even result in my exclusion from kottu according to arbitrary terms of kottu . :-)

over 35k hostages of terrorist ltte escape + how to recognize pro terrorist propaganda in news about civilians and "safe zone"

post updated with video, see below.

it is clear from variety of sources that during past day 35000 or more civilians held as human shields by tamil tiger terrorist pussies in so called safe zone and elsewhere have escaped from them in spite of pussy attempts to deter them, (using shootings and suicide bombers, 3 such bombers have killed at least 17 innocents so far ) and natural obstacles like lagoon ( some ppl have waded through chest high in water). ppl have been escaping at the rate of about 500 on average daily, some days more, some days less, from january.

as i said before plight of tamil civilians have only reinforced the truth so obvious to everyone but the pro terrorist peaceniks; "ltte does not care for tamils and is only using them as human shields both literally and in propaganda. ...civilians will never be safe as long as they are under the ltte, ceasefire or no ceasefire, safe zone or no safe zone.anyone under ltte will be used either as a shield or a weapon."

i asked then whether peaceniks will acknowledge the truth now? and predicted that they will not, that they already know it and except for literal idiots among them, they are acting so by deliberate choice. as such they should suffer the same fate as nazi collaborators in europe bc the crimes are similar. (for specifics as to who i mean by peaceniks pl read the linked post or ps below )

during past few months these ngo peaceniks and their pro terrorist tamil diaspora backers have tried to influence foreign governments and un to force a ceasefire ( as if we did not have enough of murderous ceasefires ) on sri lankan government and let ltte mass murderers breathing space to crawl out of the hole. for this purpose they have used selective and biased reports about the so called safe zone, camps where escapees from terrorists temporarily settle, and demonstrations in foreign cities.

here are some points that distinguish ltte (and terrorist parroting peacenik ) propaganda about these things from factual reporting.

terrorist propaganda,

• ignore the fact that government set up the safe zone in the first place.
• are full of unsubstantiated reports that government is attacking civilians in safe zone.
• ignores the ltte military build up in the safe zone in spite of clear proofs ( including visual ).
• ignore the fact that governmet has been supplying food and medicines to safe zone ( and the fact that ltte commandeers most of these)
• ignore the fact that ltte has held not only innocent civilians and used them for its military purposes, but that it has held un and ngo workers for the same purposes as well.
• make unwarranted comparisons between nazi concentration camps and camps where civilians escapees are temporarily settled to which un, red cross and some other ngos have access.
• repeat the unsubstantiated 100,000 as the number of civilians trapped in ltte control. it was "100,000" in january it is "100,000" now, in spite of 500 average daily escapees who populate the camps mentioned above.
• imply that any military action to finish off ltte will be the death of the "100,000", in spite of the remarkable fact ( for which sri lankan military should receive more recognition) that civilian deaths in military actions from 2006 to now, has been minimal compared to other such wars .
• use demonstrations in foreign cities to push the racist agenda that ltte = tamils and the laughable claim that ltte is fighting for tamil rights, when vast majority of tamils in sri lanka and lot of tamils in diaspora do not support terrorist tigers, and ltte has been the number one cause of tamil suffering.
• ignore the fact that these foreign demonstrations are organized by terrorist fronts
• do not mention that in past month terrorist front groups in norway attacked the sri lanka embassy there, violating a law that even ancient barbarians respected and that pro ltte norwegian government has yet to arrest the perpetrators in spite of video evidence. it is not by coincidence that lot of pro terrorist ngos like center for policy alternatives (cpa) , free media movement(fmm) , inform , and other ngos have norway or groups in norway as principal donors.
• neglect to mention the fact that most of noise coming from foreign governments come from places (like india , britain, and norway ) where there is a tamil population (with attendant and intimidating pro terrorist criminal groups) and where elections are underway or soon expected. noise is mostly confined to parties or individuals politicians who will be affected by tamil voting. in other words these are despicable attempts at pandering to racism to score political points locally. thankfully most of the grown up responsible politicians in those countries ( perhaps well aware of their countries less than stellar historical record) are staying well away .

i can probably make some more points but will stop for now.

now if you see any "news" report that does any of the above please protest any way you can (write/email to editors and news organizations, comment on blogs, use social media like facebook and twitter etc) . feel free to use the points i make above .

every single contribution is important bc only relatively few sri lankans have the economic resources to engage in such protest against ltte propaganda through internet etc. it is also important bc most foreign news organizations do not have real news sources in sri lanka and rely on second hand sources that have been tainted by terrorists sympathizers like bbc sri lanka service or ngos like cpa ( which is still sometimes called "independent" in news items when it has repeatedly shown its pro terrorist bias, among other things when it publicly lobbied to stop the eu ban on ltte) .

do not be discouraged by attacks from pro terrorists or censorship. your point ( based on factual truth after all ) will get through eventually, if the news organization has any honest ppl. if news organization is corrupt and false to the core, it will fail or sink into obscurity in the long run.

update
here is a rupavahini video of civilians escaping from terrorists via youtube channel of lkwebnews. visit lkwebnews for more srilankan news videos .

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ps
by peaceniks i mean people who think peace is worth any cost (even cost of human rights, justice, democracy, and freedom ). that is people like paikiasothy saravanamuttu, jehan perera, jayadeva uyangoda, sunila abeysekera, sunanda deshapriya, nimalka fernando, rohan edirisinha, jeevan thiagarajaha, and their ilk (and their underlings like sanjana hattotuwa). and their fellow travelers in the sl blogosphere like hypocrite indi.ca/padashow.wordpress (son and tool of a corrupt political appointee) and his cronies.

btw sanjana hattotuwa's groundviews blog is an excellent example for the sort of terrorist propaganda pointed out above, you will see that posts there adhere to all or some of distinguishing features of ltte propaganda pointed out above .

pps
some of the indi padashow's suckerboys ( led these days by a certain drummerboy, but others no doubt like to be first with puckered lips) object to my use of words like "pussy" (used by me exclusively for cowardly tiger terrorists, and has no reference to female vagina (really!) which suckerboys hate/envy), "corrupt political appointee" (fact. what else can you call corruption? it is corruption by indi.padashow's own standards, in fact with more evidence ), "peaceniks" ( what to call ppl who value peace above human rights, justice, democracy, and freedom as documented by their won actions and writings, esp with regard to sole representative status of ltte) , etc. btw "padashow" is the name of a blog indi and perhaps others, use to attack ppl while denying authorship.

bc facts and honesty wins out in this blog over cronyism, sorry, i cannot do without those words, boys. in fact i will write more about these suckerboy attacks on me with relevant links soon when i have the time.

meanwhile, i hear that indi padashow is campaigning for his latest squeeze shiral lakthilaka (indi's former idols include mervyn silva, mangala samaraweera etc. all his daddy's potential or former political benefactors),a peacenik underling, who wants to get elected to western provincial council and subsist on taxpayer money while doing nothing, now that ngo peacenik business is turning out to be a dead end.

i cannot confirm this, but indi reportedly tried to perform the same services for duminda silva, (ranil's favorite in last pc election but this time in upfa), before settling on lakthilaka; it seems duminda kicked him out saying he prefers teenage girls to nerdy men. lol. anyway problem with lakthilaka's campaign is that it is run from trinco hotels while electorate is in colombo.

ppps
talking about trinco hotels, isn't it ironic how peacniks and friends enjoy the fruits of military and political actions against terrorists (safe eastern province beaches ) while denouncing and misrepresenting them. more hypocrisy anyone?

sunday post - amazing dance video

via chinese cctv and godtube (surprising combination there too).

if you fail to cry watching this, you are an inhuman moron, like indi.ca/padashow and peaceniks.

-
btw last part of above sentence and what follows(while true) were especially added, in true sunday spirit, to stoke the rather deficient self worth of excrement throwing limp dic...sorry benevolent dictator. it aims to validate his superficial stylistic critique of my last post (he of course cannot attempt a substantive critique given the factual accuracy and honesty of my post).

my blog is open and uncensored esp to criticism and rely solely on written word to articulate my opinions, unlike benevolent dictator's, indi.ca and almost all peacenik blogs, which in true dictatorial fashion, try to close off opposing opinions through not providing links to source, not publishing or censoring comments, and variety of dirty tactics.

that is why you find the link to his critique here, while you will not find a link to my post there even though it is the basis of that critique. (warning to those who click on his link: his post stinks due to all the excrement throwing he indulges in. so much so indi (and one or two of his cronies) went sniffing, as usual attracted to the smell . myself forced to defend, had to hold the nose while there).

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human right violating criminal monitors of cmev

several racist peacenik criminals and their ngos are supposedly "monitoring" the election under the label center for monitoring election violence (cmev). what can be more laughable?

the ngos involved with cmev are centre for policy alternatives (cpa), the free media movement (fmm), and inform human rights documentation centre.

lets look at some of the few things they have done to violate human and democratic rights sri lankans living in east .

these individuals and ngos opposed getting rid of ltte terrorists from east. and in fact advocated extending ltte's oppressive control of east as an effort at appeasement of terrorists.

they accepted and advocated accepting of ltte's murderous (literally) claim to be sole representative of tamils which is completely racist and undemocratic.

even though they claim to stand up for human rights and freedom of expression they have not stood up for human rights and freedom of expression of people under ltte oppression, or under threat from ltte.

they have never asked that gosl use its resources to bring ltte criminals to justice and stop the culture of impunity enjoyed by ltte .

when did criminal ass licker paikiasothy saravanamuttu, and cpa ask that gosl defeat the human right violating ltte and bring their leader to justice? or question the illegality of the ltte puppet tna mps elections ( where some of them got 90+% of the vote )? or unreservedly denounce the brutal preventing of people's right to vote in 2004 election? never.

when did so called free media movement and racists like sunanda deshapriya, stood up for freedom of expression of people under ltte? never! they in fact kept on supporting ltte terrorists' controls on media and had warm (perhaps even corrupt) personal relations with murderers like roasted smiling pussy and balasingham

the ngo inform ( in the person of sunila abeysekera) in conjunction with cpa were acting as straight ltte propaganda parrots when they passed off a dbs jeyaraj written (as is with him these days sourced with outright falsehoods from ltte terrorist spin office) report as results of a fact finding mission, after the small trinco riot on april 2006. detailed examination of plagiarism ( not that hard to detect this, since whole passages were copied word for word, see the post ) and bias of that report by me, initiated hysterical attacks on me by likes of peacenik underling sanjana hattotuwa conneted with cpa (who then ran since deleted moju blog) and presently run groundviews blog where dissenting opinions and corrections of facts are still arbitrarily censored.

given this history, any sensible sri lankan will know what to expect from seetha ranjani, udaya kalupathirana, and paikiasothy saravanamuttu, convener of cmev.

in fact this morning cmev propagated the easily verifiable falsehood that mobile phones will be shut off in east ( this is very similar to the false, and again easily verifiable as such, report fmm progated in januaray 2007. in conjunction with indi padashow's father) expect more such idiotic and murderous terrorist propaganda parroting from cmev in their efforts dig deep into the terrorist ass with their tongue, hand, and keyboards.

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u.s. freezes tro assets

u.s. treasury department has frozen the ltte front tamils rehabilitation organisation (tro)'s assets. because,

"According to sources within the organization, TRO is the preferred conduit of funds from the United States to the LTTE in Sri Lanka.

TRO also has facilitated LTTE procurement operations in the United States. Those operations included the purchase of munitions, equipment, communication devices, and other technology for the LTTE.

TRO's efforts worldwide reportedly have allowed the LTTE to use humanitarian aid, which TRO collected from the international community after the December 2004 tsunami, to launch new campaigns to strengthen LTTE military capacity."

this has been long time in coming (they were after all designated as a terrorist front in fbi's case against canadian and us based terrorists arrested in 2006 august) but is welcome even late. it must be remembered that all prominent ngo peaceniks in sri lanka have taken tro's part at one time or other. this becomes interesting when we consider the following extract of us treasury's press release.

"Recent information indicates that the LTTE has ordered international NGOs operating in its territory to provide all project funding through local NGOs, which are managed collectively by TRO. This arrangement allows TRO to withdraw money from the local NGO accounts and to provide a portion of the relief funds to the LTTE. The LTTE has reportedly exerted pressure to comply on a few international NGOs that have resisted these arrangements."

let us hope local ngos that were used in this way will be named soon and all dealing with tro and other ngos will be made public.

anyway even as it is, it is interesting and sheds further light in certain things.

cha memebership
for instance in 2006 annual general meeting of consortium of humanitarian agencies (cha - a sort of umbrella group of ngos in sri lanka) ngo peaceniks clamored to get tro admitted as a full member ( it was just an associate till then ) even though credible allegations against its activities were already current, till they got their way. given that cha's executive director jeevan thiagarajaha (the same one who was sued by his wife for harassment and physical abuse involving even dogs - wonder why sunday time's original story is now missing. see the google cache here ) is one of those peaceniks that was not surprising. this inevitably and justifiably tainted all members of cha with tro's help for terrorist murders.

white van abduction theories and tro
tro under terrorist pussy direction started the white van conspiracy theories by staging the fake abduction of 20(?) of its members in january 2006 (words "white van" first appeared in this context in tro statement about this) . when obvious problems with its story (common to many of other fake white van "disappearances") were pointed out peaceniks refused to listen and fell to abusing anyone who dared point them out. i came in for abuse at moju (predecessor of groundviews blog, associated with uber peacenik ngo center for policy alternatives) when i raised questions there. this (along with cpa's report on so called trinco riot which as i pointed out was plagiarized from an article by ltte apologist dbs jeyaraj) was one of the main reasons i personally began to doubt the good faith of most peaceniks. before that as my posts here will indicate my attitude was different. people who are unable to tolerate exposure of terrorist propaganda do not stand for human rights. anyway peaceniks still unquestioningly give credence and propagate these white van abduction theories and abuse anyone who question their reality.

moju/groundviews collaboration
moju blog and admins went on to publish (and then defend when their basis and bias were questioned) tro statements in full or part on all manner of subjects, to propagate the terrorist viewpoint until tro's assets were frozen in sri lanka after the u.s. arrests in august 2006 mentioned above. i personally think that the main motivation for sanjana hattotuwa's deletion of moju blog and its replacement by groundviews (where opposition to prevailing terrorist parroting there is subjectively and arbitrary censored) was the desire to cover up increasingly undeniable evidence of moju's past use as a terrorist propaganda vehicle. however he will be frustrated since moju posts can still be obtained through cache sites; nothing ever gets deleted on the internet. when will he do the same for groundviews? i will accept bets :-)

cha reports and tro
anyway after the tro accounts in sri lanka were frozen its propaganda personnel used cha as a convenient backup. most reports issued by cha were done with the help and participation of tro and its current or former employees. for instance it is a cha team that discovered (?!) the bodies of the 15 aid workers (they inexplicably missed the other two bodies(!) hmmmm...- remember the aid worker's employer said only 15 were missing initially) in muttur on the day military recaptured the town when all other ppl were not in a position to visit (!).

and what do you know? peaceniks and groundviews regularly use and publish the same reports or posts based on them. in the same way they and moju published tro's statements, without raising the obvious questions

will they accuse me of calumny again as they did when i and others called tro a ltte front? let us hope so. it always feels great to be right before most ppl .

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no to censorship!

i was going to write a post denouncing a proposed censorship of military news, and suggest ways to get and publish such news without getting imprisoned when i heard the welcome news that after all there won't be a censorship. so i will keep this short and keep that draft in case some idiot decides to impose a censorship for real.

as i have pointed out before, so far there isn't any state censorship in sri lanka, as anyone who actually examines a sri lankan newsstand will know. all points of view (including that of terrorist pussies) are amply represented. both substantiated and unsubstantiated allegations and mud throwings are allowed free reign. this should continue unhampered. to put this freedom in perspective; you wouldn't find any other country allowing enemy terrorist statements to be published in full in national newspapers and electronic broadcast media. ever seen full speeches of osama bin laden in new york times? or bbc? but we see unedited full speeches and interviews of big pussy and rest of his thugs. that is a good thing imo. sri lankan public can judge intelligently .

when it comes to freedom of expression only real compliant that can be made against the current administration is the temporary blocking of tamilnet. btw it is now freely accessible.

all other incidents usually cited by terrorist parrots like so called free media movement ( in fact nothing more than another pro terrorist peacenik ngo) when examined in detail do not stand up as censorship (not counting censorship imposed by local cultural/pc standards which can be found in every country; we ban fashion tv and on-air sex on radio, united states censor certain words and 'wardrobe malfunctions' etc.) . for instance in the recent case about abc radio network, abc clearly was irresponsible to report a false news story about an ltte attack. and if the remedy of canceling their license was too strong (as i personally think it is), abc has recourse to normal law. let the courts decide what the equitable remedy is in such cases. that is not censorship that is justice.

as for terrorist parroting peaceniks (who btw are not shy to censor any opposing views in places they control) let them cry themselves hoarse in the local media, as they have a perfect right to do, about an imaginary censorship. (however ppl who point out their hypocrisy and subservience to terrorists also have a similar right.)

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four peacenik criminals quit human rights panel, good riddance!

it seems four prominent terrorist parroting peaceniks sunila abeysekera, nimalka fernando, rohan edirisinha and paikiasothy saravanamuttu, have quit a ten member human rights panel bc "their advice was not taken seriously".
these ppl who,

• believe in the racist notion that ltte terrorists are fighting for tamils/tamils support terrorists,
• believe that peace is worth any cost (even the cost of democracy, justice, human rights and freedom ),
• and are willing to perpetuate the culture of impunity here by allowing convicted mass murderers and their cronies more political power( in the process accusing thousands of men and women in the sri lankan armed forces with horrible crimes based on nothing but terrorist propaganda)

had no business in a human rights panel in the first place.

their advice if followed will only lead to more human rights violations not less, as their actions so far have indicated. in fact their actions convict them of being willing apologists for convicted gross violators of human rights of sri lanka.

• these terrorist arse-lickers or their connected ngos, willingly accepted the terrorist claim to be sole representative of tamils (a claim which violates human rights of tamils especially).
• they stayed quiet or supported the government while it failed to protect rights of sri lankans which were violated again and again by the terrorists during so called ceasefire.
  
• they stayed quiet when military was attacked almost daily from december'05 to april'06 unprovoked and without retaliation.
• they stayed quiet and failed to stand up for human rights while civilians as well as military were attacked and killed, and war crimes like holding water hostage were committed.
• they opposed and lobbied against naming of ltte as terrorists organization by eu and other countries.
• several of them collaborated in an attempt to inflate a small riot in trinco into another '83 (in the process plagiarizing a report by terrorist propaganda sourced dbs jeyaraj, as a result of a non existant fact finding mission to trinco.)
• they suddenly and predictably became active when military acted after mavil aru and tried (among numerous other such perfidious actions) to make the terrorist ltte's temporary capture and attempted ethnic cleansing of muttur permanent by calling to "stop the siege" at that moment (in fact on the same day that 17 acf workers were killed in muttur).
• they and their cronies clamored to have terrorist front tro accepted as a member of umbrella ngo organizations to provide it with cover.
• they continually make false accusations against whole of sri lankans armed forces based on either absurd white van conspiracy theories dreamed up by pussy spin office or actions of a criminal few ( who when there is evidence has been arrested), in an effort create a moral equalization between armed forces of a democracy and a bunch of criminal thugs.
• they traitorously lobby for foreign intervention in sri lanka thus violating political rights of participants of sri lankan democracy through foreign coercion.
• they always complain of censorship, when in fact a look at a newsstand full of all sorts of opinions( including terrorists' own), accusations, and mud-throwings, by all sides of the political spectrum, will convince anyone not so blinkered that there isn't and wasn't any censorship(except for a temporary blocking of tamilnet ). on the other hand their own cronies censor anyone who disagrees from places they have under their control .
  
• ...
  

I can go on and on.

after all that these criminals presume to speak for human rights and want their advice followed ? lol (yes only reaction to that can be laughter at them).

anyway thank god they have finally quit. (even tough they will continue with their criminal mischief elsewhere.)

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more racist reporting by western media's sri lankan corespondents

one more example of racist reporting by westerns media can be seen below. the headline reads “Tamils kill seven civilians" (this time the culprits are 'afp correspondents'). this equating of tamils with terrorists is inexcusable. being journalists should not excuse anyone. they are free to be racists and slander sri lankans if they want, but we should expose their racism and unprofessional conduct.

this equating of tamils with terrorists is exactly what ltte terrorist pussies promote. their propaganda is always full of that. anyone who parrot that is doing terrorists' work for them.

we should continue to name and shame such terrorist parrots and racists whenever we can. i have already pointed out the examples of habitual racism by simon gardner the reuters correspondent here and bbc's sri lankan section. that they change the headline later does not take away the enormity of the crime or the damage caused by the slander (see the number of australian sunday newspapers this was published in).


in fact that they write this kind of headline in a hurry (though this was certainly not in a hurry) indicate how their minds perceive the tamils. as the sinhala saying goes, tongue doesn't lie even if mouth does.

hypocrisy of fmm and peaceniks
sri lanka's so called free media movement of sunanda deshapriya has always been quick to defend such racists and terrorist biased journalists. they call exposing of some journalist's terrorist parroting and racism, a threat to freedom of expression. in fact such exposure is part of freedom of expression. by trying to stop such exposure it is the fmm that is trying to curtail freedom of expression. in other words they find nothing wrong with tamils being equated to terrorists, but condemn anyone who point out (with evidence) that some journalists are repeating ltte propaganda.

sri lankan peaceniks, who also regularly parrot terrorist propaganda, believe this sort of racist stuff over usually more balanced local mainstream media, which says a lot about their level of intelligence, bias, and attitude. people like sanjana hattotuwa of groundviews swear by this kind of reporting; if it is foreign, it is god given truth to them. they will censor (and have censored) anyone who points this error in their writing or their sources. as i have said what else can you expect from people who think peace is worth any cost (including the cost of human rights, justice, freedom, and democracy). only immoral racists can hold such a postion. how many of those people who went into hysterical exaggerations about the 'eviction' incident will condemn this kind of blatant examples of real racism?

that is why we must continue to expose the hypocrisy of all those people in whatever small way we can.

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tamilnet ban, bad show - how to bypass

tamilnet is not accessible from inside sri lanka at the moment. tamilnet is without doubt a ltte terrorist propaganda website. however banning accessibility to it is unacceptable. it is also stupid. it amounts to what i consider censorship and should be resisted.

for quick and easy methods to bypass the ban see below.

the ban is not limited to slt but affects other isps as well.

this is reminiscent of the indian government's blocking of several websites in july, 2006. as i said then, "we in sri lanka may learn a thing or two from their experience if same thing happens here in the future"

btw one has has to admit that unlike indian government which as a result initially blocked whole domains (all blogspot /blogger blogs for instance were blocked) sri lankan one was more specific.

a voice in colombo is right, we have peaceniks like sanjana hattotuwa's groundviews who unquestioningly parrot what terrorists pussies say ( and arbitrarily censors opposing views and questions. ironically some of my comments they censored concerned the free media movement's fake claims about a internet blocking in jaffna in january this year. that is yetanother example of peaceniks inability to distinguish fake from real).

however parrots are parrots however obedient, it is best that we have the original. and as a voice in colombo says "what benefit can the government expect by blocking TamilNet from here? Nothing at all."

in spite of all the claims of peaceniks this is the only example any censorship by government in sri lanka. as i always say go to the nearest newsstand to see all the political views amply reflected without censorship. that openness must continue.

bypassing the ban

one way to visit a blocked site is through another site, generally called a proxy site or proxy server. is that illegal? no. even if it is so, we should risk it.

separate comprehensive blog on how to bypass the ban will be created as soon as i have some more free time.

for present you can use these quick and easy web based proxies. (some may display ads) you type in the url "www.tamilnet.com" in the box on these pages, click the button, and blocked website will load. no need to edit proxy settings in your browser.

http://proxy.org/ (wide choice of proxies and instructions)
http://www.daveproxy.co.uk/
http://www.ninjaproxy.com/
http://anonymouse.org/anonwww.html
http://www.myinternetproxy.com/

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ps at 7.10 pm 06/20/07
i forgot to write this earlier, the first site to report on the ban was the defencenet blog, showing again its relative reliability in comparison to overt terrorist propaganda sites like tamilnet itself and trashy parrots like groundviews which cannot distinguish reality from fakes (and then censors anyone who points out the fakes) as i mentioned above.

missing the concrete for the garbage

this is a screenshot (click to enlarge) of google news for term 'sri lanka' sorted for 'relevance' at around 1 am june 5 sri lankan time. anyone really interested in news about sri lanka will notice straight away what is missing here; heavy fighting north of vauniya. imo that is the most newsworthy event taking place in sri lanka. however one has to search hard to find a news story about that in any major international news source.

it is missing in spite of the fact that stories about the fighting were in sri lankan news sites (sri lankan sites are in google news but for other stories) of all persuasions.

this is not the fault of google news; it merely reflects and grades news as reported in the web. (btw i am not complaining about the normal neglect of sri lanka in international media. that sort of bias is to be expected given their market audience, as i have said before. i am pointing out what is missing in what they do report about sri lanka)

all this is typical of international coverage of sri lanka in general and sri lankan conflict in particular. they miss the concrete forest for the garbage. by garbage i mean the completely false manufactured stories like 'expelling' (peaceniks going far as to say 'ethnic cleansing') of tamils from colombo.

cocoons
but some cocooned people in colombo (especially those with peacenik sympathies) swear by international news sources. (a recent post in peacenik sanjana hattotuwa's groudviews blog erroneously comparing news about darfur and sri lanka is a good example of this warped mentality. as usual the loser censored my comments pointing out the errors in the post. i will write a more detailed post on that later as soon as i have some free time).

same sort of people believe local sri lankan news to be censored even though they can easily realize their error by visiting the nearest newspaper stand ( if they are even in sri lanka, most of them aren't for most of the time) . if they do they will be able to read all points of view (even terrorist pussy point of view not to mention peacenik parrots of terrorists) uncensored (which is as it should be, this being a democracy).

typical peacenik response when their errors are pointed out is to ask us to mind our own business and not read them (see this thread). in other words, they want us to lock ourselves into a news and opinion cocoon as they have done. fat chance!

let them live in their self generated cocoons if they want, while we remain open to all news sources. let us also point out and expose their errors and their cocoons.

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note
did not write for a while bc i was busy (with business, traveling, esp to east, and attending sick relative etc.). thanks for the emails.