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Sri Lankan director in Indian Tamil trouble
2008-03-30
A Sri Lankan film-maker has ended up in hospital after making a damning film on the Tamil Tigers and trying to have it processed in a studio in a Tamil-majority region of neighbouring India. Thushara Peiris was set upon by a furious mob outside Gemini Studios in Chennai, capital of southern Tamil Nadu state, on Monday, witnesses said. He was rescued by film studio staff and police, and flown back to Colombo -- but has lost the original film rolls which are still with the studio. "They punched me on the eye, on the nose and hit me on my head. I fell on the ground," Peiris, 39, told AFP from his bed in a hospital in Sri Lanka late last week. "I was ultimately rescued and returned to Colombo the same evening. I want the studio to return my film and the negative without damage," he said. Sri Lanka's foreign minister Rohitha Bogollagama, meanwhile, promised to use diplomatic channels to secure the release of the film footage, a state-run Sri Lankan newspaper reported on Saturday. Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels still command some support in Tamil-majority parts of India, even though they are held responsible for the 1991 murder of former Indian premier Rajiv Gandhi and branded a terrorist outfit by New Delhi. Peiris' movie is entitled "Prabhakaran," the same name of the Tamil Tiger leader who has been battling Sri Lanka's Sinhalese majority since 1972. The movie portrays the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) as a ruthless terror outfit that forces school children to join their ranks -- something that has been well documented by rights groups. But the film takes the allegations of ruthlessness a step further, with the main character forced into suicide missions despite being pregnant. The ethnic Sinhalese director, however, insisted he was being objective -- even though he admits his inspiration for some of the characters come from accounts given by the Sri Lankan military. "Those protesters misunderstood my film. They thought it was against the Tamils, but I was only making a statement against terrorism and pointing out that innocent and poor people end up as victims," Peiris said. The row is the latest display of pro-LTTE sentiment along India's palm-fringed and far southeastern coastline, where fishing communities have close ethnic and caste links to the LTTE's leadership. Last November, Tamil Nadu's chief minister M. Karunanidhi was labelled an Indian traitor by his political rivals after writing a poem mourning the death of the LTTE's political chief in a Sri Lankan government air strike. The state has also seen several pro-Tamil Tiger rallies in recent months. An Indian Tamil group behind the protests, the Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK), has accused the director of "hurting Tamil sentiments." "When the right to expression affects communal harmony, we cannot allow it. This film is bound to create law-and-order problems in the state as it clearly hurts the entire Tamil race," VCK leader Thol Thirumavalavan told AFP. "The film portrays the freedom struggle of Tamils in a poor light as if the freedom movement is forcing school children to become soldiers and compelling young women to become human bombs," he said, demanding the film be banned in India. The controversy comes as fighting escalates inside Sri Lanka where government forces are on the offensive after pulling out of a ceasefire with the LTTE in January. The Tamil Tigers, who are blockaded in the north of Sri Lanka, are believed to get most of their fuel and other essential supplies smuggled across the short stretch of sea from Tamil Nadu.
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