Sporting red T-shirts, with an Eelam map Australian Tamil youth from Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne gathered on February 12 in the Australian capital, Canberra, to voice support for the Tamil struggle and to highlight the worsening humanitarian situation in the northeast of Sri Lanka.
The 200 fans arrived wearing red "Voice of Tamils" T-shirts bearing the slogan "Where is the Humanity", and set up a party outside the gates with drummers, dancers and whistles before play.
They were attending a cricket match at Manuka Oval between Sri Lanka and India as part of the tri0nations tournament being played during the Australian cricketing season.
The youth were mainly Tamils of Sri Lankan origin and settled in Australia. Yahoo.com quoted Adrian Francis from this group as saying "It's more of a campaign than a protest.”
"We are doing this because we believe that Tamils in Sri Lanka are discriminated against and poorly treated. They are subjected to injustice in every possible walk of life and this has to change.”
Ground officials, claiming to be acting on behalf of Cricket Australia, would not let in two members of the group. The group was also advised not to fly Tamil flags.
Student Vekram Sambasivam said the Tamil sympathisers had come from Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra, although they weren't necessarily supporting their home country.
"How can I when they do what they do to my people?" Sambasivam said.
"We came here to get some attention for our cause, but the guards explained that it was Cricket Australia's policy not to politicise the game with banners."
Francis, who said his parents were victims of this injustice, claimed this was the first public exhibition of their disgruntlement.
"We don't want to resort to hostilities. This is a peaceful way to draw attention. We chose to turn up for this cricket match because we felt this will help us draw attention."
According to Francis and a few of his fellow red shirts, this campaign will be seen in other places of Australia on course of this tri-series in future.
"Definitely in Sydney and Melbourne, where we have a sizeable presence. You can see how serious we are about this, we came all the way from Sydney," said someone identifying himself as Jayan. It's difficult to speculate how far reaching their effort will be or whether they have chosen the right platform to voice their displeasure.
But if drawing attention was their main objective, they did succeed in that endeavour. Not clear how enjoyable it was for the Sri Lankan team, they enjoyed the support nonetheless, as did many others.
Separately, the Canadian Tamil students from York University used Tamileelam flag as the rallying symbol as they exhibited prize winning entries in the cultural shows during the "multicultural week" event in York.
During the week-long event in York University, the Tamil Students’ Organization was selected as the best group.
"The goals of our group is to bring together the Tamil student community not only in York, but across all higher institutions in Canada, and to expose the student community to the cultural aspects that define our roots," key spokesperson for the group said.
More than 10,000 students and 60 different Student Organizations participated in the week-long event.
The 200 fans arrived wearing red "Voice of Tamils" T-shirts bearing the slogan "Where is the Humanity", and set up a party outside the gates with drummers, dancers and whistles before play.
They were attending a cricket match at Manuka Oval between Sri Lanka and India as part of the tri0nations tournament being played during the Australian cricketing season.
The youth were mainly Tamils of Sri Lankan origin and settled in Australia. Yahoo.com quoted Adrian Francis from this group as saying "It's more of a campaign than a protest.”
"We are doing this because we believe that Tamils in Sri Lanka are discriminated against and poorly treated. They are subjected to injustice in every possible walk of life and this has to change.”
Ground officials, claiming to be acting on behalf of Cricket Australia, would not let in two members of the group. The group was also advised not to fly Tamil flags.
Student Vekram Sambasivam said the Tamil sympathisers had come from Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra, although they weren't necessarily supporting their home country.
"How can I when they do what they do to my people?" Sambasivam said.
"We came here to get some attention for our cause, but the guards explained that it was Cricket Australia's policy not to politicise the game with banners."
Francis, who said his parents were victims of this injustice, claimed this was the first public exhibition of their disgruntlement.
"We don't want to resort to hostilities. This is a peaceful way to draw attention. We chose to turn up for this cricket match because we felt this will help us draw attention."
According to Francis and a few of his fellow red shirts, this campaign will be seen in other places of Australia on course of this tri-series in future.
"Definitely in Sydney and Melbourne, where we have a sizeable presence. You can see how serious we are about this, we came all the way from Sydney," said someone identifying himself as Jayan. It's difficult to speculate how far reaching their effort will be or whether they have chosen the right platform to voice their displeasure.
But if drawing attention was their main objective, they did succeed in that endeavour. Not clear how enjoyable it was for the Sri Lankan team, they enjoyed the support nonetheless, as did many others.
Separately, the Canadian Tamil students from York University used Tamileelam flag as the rallying symbol as they exhibited prize winning entries in the cultural shows during the "multicultural week" event in York.
During the week-long event in York University, the Tamil Students’ Organization was selected as the best group.
"The goals of our group is to bring together the Tamil student community not only in York, but across all higher institutions in Canada, and to expose the student community to the cultural aspects that define our roots," key spokesperson for the group said.
More than 10,000 students and 60 different Student Organizations participated in the week-long event.
