News - LTTE makes great display though banned in the UK

Sri Lanka has protested to the British Government for allowing pictures of Tiger leader Velupillai Prabhakaran and other LTTE symbols to be publicly displayed at a Hyde Park meeting despite written requests several days earlier to the Metropolitan Police and concerned authorities.

In a Third Person note to the British Foreign Office, the Sri Lanka High Commission is believed to have said that the huge cutout of Tiger leader Prabhakaran's picture placed at the side of the stage along with placards of his portrait carried by some of the gathering to mark "Black July", the anti-Tamil violence in Sri Lanka in 1983 and streamers depicting the LTTE flag were a violation of UK's Terrorism Act 2000 as well as the more recent law, the Terrorism Act 2006.The British authorities, including the Home Office under whose jurisdiction the Metropolitan Police functions, were believed to have been reminded that the High Commission had earlier this month drawn their attention to the July 25 observance day being organised by the Tamil Youth Front, which it claimed was an LTTE front and that fund raising was going on through the sale of tickets.

A report from a website called Subidcham.com, said to be a Tamil run one, emailed to the Sunday Times claimed that "those who came to remember July 83 violence found that the theme of remembering had been hijacked by the LTTE."

It further said that "LTTE cadres wearing uniform of the LTTE police in the LTTE-controlled Vanni were engaged to provide security for the meeting."

Despite official warnings no effort appears to have been made by the Special Branch and the uniformed police to monitor and halt these happenings that were in direct violation of the terrorism laws, it is claimed.

Sri Lanka has also expressed its disappointment that the Royal Park Constabulary that oversees activities at Hyde Park had granted permission for the meeting unconditionally when usually due care is taken to ensure that law and order is maintained and laws are not violated.

The note regrets that even after formal representations were made that the LTTE would use the meeting for its propaganda and for the glorification of its leader no action was taken.

It is understood that when the Royal Park Constabulary was alerted to the large cutout of the LTTE leader and the display of other photographs of him, they had approached the organisers and asked them to remove the cutout, the TYF had flatly refused and the police had turned away.

The meeting that got underway slowly in the early afternoon and gathered momentum later in the day with foreign and local speakers, including a TNA parliamentarian who is reported to have misplaced his passport somewhere in Europe, is variously estimated to have attracted between 5,000 and 10,000 Tamils though not all of them are LTTE supporters, according to some Tamils who attended the meeting.