George in TORONTO

Toronto Tamil community dismisses intimidation allegations
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BY GEORGE KAGAME
David Pooalapilla an official with the Canadian Tamil Congress has called allegations of intimidation and extortion directed against the Sri Lankan community in Toronto as an abuse of Canadian values and insulting to the freedom of expression in the country.

In a telephone interview, Poolapilla who was responding to the allegations stated in a news conference called on Tuesday at the Marriot Residence Inn by the Sri Lankan United Association of Canada, SLUNA as fabrications. One Haska Rathnamalala a senior member of SLUNA alleged that the Tamils were a ‘large’ political group in Canada with widespread influence and was extorting money from the Sri Lankan community in Toronto. SLUNA also showed a video shot showing one man who had allegedly been ordered to close his shop.

Poolapilla said that everyone that participated in the pro Tamil peaceful demonstrations in Toronto last week was there on their own accord and “were not forced.” He added that for SLUNA to say that the demonstrators were coerced was “insulting the Canadian freedom of expression and values because there were over 140 different organizations involved including public corporations and we cannot force all those people.”

He also said that the video shots that SLUNA has showed were misplaced as they are supposed to be presented to police authorities instead of the media. “Canadian police is definetely among the best in the world and they would deal with such cases of intimidation instead of SLUNA. This is total fabrication against the LTTE (Tamil community in Toronto.” He was however very quick to disassociate his organization from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam