New Video of Sexually Assaulted and Murdered Captive Tamil Reporter is Bad News for Sri Lanka

Isaipriya's body positions recorded in photos and video tell a chilling story of war crimes and cover up.
(Warning: disturbing images)

(SACRAMENTO) - Sometimes war crime evidence is obscure, sometimes it is undeniable. The latter is the case involving a young Tamil Tiger reporter named Shoba, more commonly known within the Tamil culture as Isaipriya, who met a terrible fate after being captured by the Sri Lankan Army (SLA) at the conclusion of the country's long running civil war.

The SLA listed her name as Issei Piriya and recorded that she was a lieutenant colonel in the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam). Sri Lanka's government reported that she was killed in the fighting, on 18 May 2009. However new video released by Callum Mcrae of in London as part of the station's latest documentary on the war crimes committed by the SLA, "No Fire Zone" - shows that she was captured alive, appearing to have no physical injuries.

Video recorded of her alive, half nude and disoriented, sitting in what appears to be shallow water, proves that she was taken as a captive of the Sri Lankan Army. Isaipriya was initially covered up and treated with dignity.

Isaipriya's body positions recorded in photos and video tell a chilling story of war crimes and cover up.

The video from the new program, "No Fire Zone" was released by Channel 4's Callum Macrae, as Jonathan Miller reports. These Channel 4 journalists, along with the station's Jon Snow, have forced the tragedy of the mass murder of Tamil combatants and civilians by armed Sri Lankan government forces into the world spotlight.

World leaders will meet in Sri Lanka in less than two weeks for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Summit. Leaders including David Cameron, will visit this country as protests calling for a boycott against the country's horrific human rights abuses reach a feverish tempo.

Isaipriya tamilnet.tv anchor killed

One of the women victims, stripped naked, hands tied behind back, and shot dead, as seen in the video footage that has recently reached Channel-4 has been identified as 27-year-old Shoba, with nom de plume Isaippiriya, who worked as media specialist with the LTTE, according to the TamilNet Vanni correspondent who recently reached a free country in the West.

“I am able to learn through those who have been at Mu’l'livaaykkaal in the final days of war, that Shoba remained unarmed and did not take part in combat,” the Vanni correspondent told TamilNet, adding that Shoba lost her 4-month-old baby girl, named Akal, in the last stage of the war.

TamilNet refrains from publishing the cruel video, but instead publishes a video footage of Isaippiriya as a reporter from LTTE’s O’liveechchu video magazine.

Isaippiriya was born in 1982, was educated in the Memorial School until Grade 5. She obtained a scholarship to continue her education in Veampadi Girls High School in Jaffna until 1996.With her family displaced by war to Vanni, Isaippiriya continued her studies in Vanni till she joined the movement’s media division.

When the first photos were released several years ago, we saw the images of Isaipriya's nude, brutalized body with her hands tied behind her back. These widely published photos of the young reporter and actress adored by the Tamil culture, broke hearts and told a savage story of war crimes and an army's sexual depravity.

Salem-News.com brought forth more chilling, conclusive evidence of Sri Lanka's war crimes on 12 June 2012, by releasing a videotape showing the body of Isaipriya in a row of dead Tamil Tigers, or LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam). Her hands are untied and she is presented as a dead combatant.

The time stamp shows the sequence between the initial images of her body, and the image of her lined up with her hands untied. The video was released by London attorney Vasuki Muruhathas, who represents an unnamed Tamil war crime victim.

The imagery altogether, shows that Isaipriya was very clearly the victim of a vicious war crime. Her story is one of thousands that went mostly unreported in 2009. This is due to the fact that Sri Lanka's journalists are some of the most threatened, murdered and disappeared media employees.

Those who write favorably about the minority Tamils are targeted, sometimes openly, and often through the notorious 'white vans' that are used to abduct those deemed a threat to the government. The victims are often tortured, their bodies frequently deposited near their homes.

Isaipriya, who was also known as Shoba, was listed as a Lieutenant Colonel in the LTTE, but she did not fill the role of a combatant, only as a journalist. She was a mother but her baby died in the months preceding her own death. Sri Lanka's government had a binding obligation under international law to treat prisoners of war humanely and to this day, the government under President Majinda Rajapaksa admits nothing and denies everything, even in the face of overwhelming evidence.

Homage To Isaipriya - Poem
- My Sister, My Mother, My Comrade

By Karthick RM

Many a disease plagues this world
but none so devastating
as the silence of those
that can speak.
I speak today,
I cry today,
for you. My Sister,
My Mother, My Comrade.

My Sister! With music
in your name.
The ‘isai’ of your sacrifice
like that of my other sisters
Manorama, Nilofar, Phulmoni
will be sung for ages to come
in songs of our resistance

This I promise,
your brother, a sorry being
whose only weapons
are his words.

My Mother! I was born
as your son the day
the child of your womb
was killed. Mother,
I am your son.
As I am the son of the mothers
of Eelam, Kurdistan, Palestine.
A son who seeks justice
for unheard voices,
for untold horrors,
for unspoken miseries.
A sorry being, your son,

whose only weapons
are his words.

My Comrade! I claim to live
(rather shamelessly)
for the cause you died for,
a people longing for freedom,
a soil aching for peace,
a love for life,
now facing despair,
now facing death.
As my eyes see
what has been done to you
tears pour – as words.
Words. The only weapons of
a sorry being, your comrade.

Oh dove of freedom
torn apart by vultures of lust!

Oh lamb of peace
prey to jackals of power!
Oh angel of justice!
Oh goddess of liberty!
She lies there, naked
and ravaged
by creatures called ‘men’.
Disrobed was not your body,
but the farce called Lanka.
Violated was not you,
but the notion of humanity.
Raped, again and again,
was the silence
of those that can speak,
but who chose not to.

But I speak today,
I cry today.
Your sibling, your son,
your comrade.
Now a man.
Now a walking corpse.
Whose only weapons
are his words.
As of now… Original source: wavesunceasing.wordpress.com/2010/12/15/to-isaipriya-my-sister-my-mother-my-comrade/

With almost 25 years of experience on the west coast and worldwide as a television news producer, photojournalist, reporter and assignment editor, Tim King is Salem-News.com's Executive News Editor. His background includes covering the war in Afghanistan in 2006 and 2007, and reporting from the Iraq war in 2008. Tim is a former U.S. Marine who follows stories of Marines and Marine Veterans; he's covered British Royal Marines and in Iraq, Tim embedded with the same unit he served with in the 1980's.

Tim holds awards for reporting, photography, writing and editing from traditional mainstream news agencies like The Associated Press and Electronic Media Association; he also holds awards from the National Coalition of Motorcyclists, the Oregon Confederation of Motorcycle Clubs; and was presented with a 'Good Neighbor Award' for his reporting, by the The Red Cross.

Tim's years as a Human Rights reporter have taken on many dimensions; he has rallied for a long list of cultures and populations and continues to every day, with a strong and direct concentration on the 2009 Genocide of Tamil Hindus and Christians in Sri Lanka. As a result of his long list of reports exposing war crimes against Tamil people, Tim was invited to be the keynote speaker at the FeTNA (Federation of Tamil Sangams of North America) Conference in Baltimore, in July 2012. This is the largest annual gathering of North American Tamils; Tim addressed more than 3000 people and was presented with a traditional Sri Lanka ‘blessed garland’ and a shawl as per the tradition and custom of Tamil Nadu

In a personal capacity, Tim has written 2,026 articles as of March 2012 for Salem-News.com since the new format designed by Matt Lintz was launched in December, 2005. Serving readers with news from all over the globe, Tim's life is literally encircled by the endless news flow published by Salem-News.com, where more than 100 writers contribute stories from 23+ countries and regions.

Tim specializes in writing about political and military developments worldwide; and maintains that the label 'terrorist' is ill placed in many cases; specifically with the LTTE Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, where it was used as an excuse to slaughter people by the tens of thousands; and in Gaza, where a trapped population lives at the mercy of Israel's destructive military war crime grinder. At the center of all of this, Tim pays extremely close attention to the safety and welfare of journalists worldwide.

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Comments Leave a comment on this story.

All comments and messages are approved by people and self promotional links or unacceptable comments are denied.

irma kovac November 20, 2013 5:50 am (Pacific time)

i wanted to vomit it made me sick to my stomach.How can any HUMAN BEING DO
THIS TO ANOTHER??these murderers have to be brought to trial and should get the death penalty.how on earth can our Australian Government Abbott even talk let alone deal with these monsters.??i thought ABBOTT WAS A CHRISTIAN AND I FIND HE'S GOT NO MORALS AND DEALS WITH THE DEVIL.HE'S AGAINST ABORTION ,BUT CONDONES THESE KILLINGS WHILE SENDING THEM FREE BOATS SO MORE PEOPLE CAN BE BUTCHERED.I HOPE MR. ABBOTT YOU SLEEP WELL AT NIGHT FOR I WON'T SLEEP TONIGHT AFTER HAVING WATCHED THIS GENOCIDE.

Maha November 8, 2013 2:05 pm (Pacific time)

Thank you.

saravanan November 4, 2013 11:46 am (Pacific time)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8-wPGPsHiU

Reka November 3, 2013 4:40 pm (Pacific time)

Thank you for bringing Tamils war crime evidences. We thank to London Attorney Vasuki Muruhathas for releasing videos. Tamils need Tamil Eelam

israeli troll; November 3, 2013 3:40 pm (Pacific time)

it only reminds me of how some people just don't have limits.

Thank you November 3, 2013 10:49 am (Pacific time)

Tim King, you are doing the Tamil people a great service by bringing this information forward. This reminds me of why you were the Keynote Speaker at FeTNA last year, 3k Tamils felt indebted to you for your work in exposing SL's war crimes.

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New Video of Sexually Assaulted and Murdered Captive Tamil Reporter is Bad News for Sri Lanka

Isaipriya tamilnet.tv anchor killed

Homage To Isaipriya - Poem
- My Sister, My Mother, My Comrade

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New Video of Sexually Assaulted and Murdered Captive Tamil Reporter is Bad News for Sri Lanka

Isaipriya tamilnet.tv anchor killed

Homage To Isaipriya - Poem - My Sister, My Mother, My Comrade

Quick Links

DINING

MUST SEE SALEM

AUCTIONS - APPRAISALS

CONSTRUCTION SERVICES

ONLINE SHOPPING

Advertise with Salem-News

Homage To Isaipriya - Poem
- My Sister, My Mother, My Comrade