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Front organizations of the LTTE in the UK organized a public
event at ExCeL London, 1, Western Gateway, Royal Victoria Dock,
London E16 1XL, on 27th November 2008 to celebrate the birthday
of LTTE leader Prabhakaran and to commemorate and glorify the
deaths of suicide bombers. It was organized while the LTTE being
a proscribed terrorist organization under the UK Terrorism Act.
Well before the 27th November 2008, the Sri Lanka High
Commission in London informed the relevant British political and
security authorities concerning the holding of this event. The
High Commission drew attention to the fact that this event is
being used by the LTTE front organizations to propagate LTTE
terrorist ideology among the Diaspora Tamils and to raise funds
for terrorist activities. They have, in the past displayed and
sold LTTE paraphernalia and photographs of their leader and
telecast the so called ‘heroes day speech’ of Velupillai
Prabhakaran to the gathering. As a consequence of the
proceedings, it was quite clear that the so called ‘Heroes Day’
(Maveerar Naal) was a callous disregard to the British law and
an event to propagate and support terrorism on the soil of the
sovereign state of Sri Lanka.
Despite the protests and warnings made by the High Commission,
the organizers were allowed to proceed with the event on 27
November 2008. As the High Commission predicted and cautioned,
the event has yielded the same results as previous years. The
LTTE front organizations have used the event to raise funds by
various means and broadcast the speech of the LTTE leader to the
gathering. The High Commission is already in the process of
contacting the relevant British authorities to pursue further in
this regard.
High Commission of Sri Lanka,
30 November, 2008
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