UK Based Media Outlet Tamil Guardian Linked to Terror?

By Miyuru Rasoj

The spark for this research was a single social-media post, yet the ramifications quickly outgrew the confines of any platform. 

On 5 July 2025, the United Kingdom–based news outlet Tamil Guardian published on X (formerly Twitter) a post headed “Remembering the Black Tigers,” invoking a solemn day on which, according to the post, “Eelam Tamils (referring to Sri Lankan ethnic Tamils) across the world remember and mourn the sacrifices made by the LTTE’s elite women and men, the Black Tigers.” 

That seemingly innocuous statement drew immediate concern because the Black Tigers were not a conventional militant group but the dedicated suicide-bomber unit of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, better known as the LTTE or Tamil Tigers. 

In Sri Lanka, as well as in Britain where Tamil Guardian operates, the LTTE remains a proscribed terrorist organization. The memory of its bloody terror attacks, honed over decades of guerilla warfare, still lingers vividly among survivors of the civil war. Against that backdrop, a public salute to the group’s suicide bombers placed the outlet's editorial judgment under an unforgiving spotlight and compelled our team to begin a weeks long investigation into Tamil Guardian's editorial practices.

We conducted a thorough review of over 23,000 Tamil Guardian articles published since 2011, in its archives. This was not a quick search for dramatic headlines. Instead, our team carefully read through archived content, examined how acts of violence were presented, and identified repeated language patterns that portrayed extremist figures in a positive light.

As the review progressed, a troubling pattern emerged. The glorification of LTTE terrorists was not an isolated incident but appeared regularly throughout the publication's history. These articles often used language focused on remembrance, resistance, and shared sorrow to present these figures sympathetically. The editorial approach, praising suicide bombers and describing senior LTTE commanders as "heroes", raises serious ethical concerns about the limits of acceptable political speech, especially for a publication operating under British press freedom protections.

The origins and operations of the group in question -LTTE- require little embellishment, yet they do require clarity. The LTTE formed in 1976 with the stated aim of carving out an independent mono-ethnic Tamil homeland in northern and eastern Sri Lanka. While many Tamils suffered discrimination that gave rise to political grievances, the LTTE’s chosen methods - terrorism, assassinations, large-scale massacres, child soldier recruitment, and ultimately suicide bombings -transformed what began as an mono ethno-nationalist struggle into one of the world’s most brutal insurgencies. The Black Tigers, founded in 1987, epitomized that brutality. Recruits underwent months of ideological brainwashing and military training, culminating in suicide missions that targeted heads of state, public transportation, religious sites, and civilian gatherings. Their signature operations included the 1996 attack on the Sri Lankan Central Bank which killed atleast 91 civilians and injured more than 1,400, the Temple of the Tooth Relic attack which killed 17 people and injure over 25.  To survivors, each anniversary of those acts is a grim reminder that thousands of loved ones were lured into everyday settings -commuter trains, market squares, and places of worship - only to be torn apart by explosives strapped to human bodies.

Among the atrocities that stain the LTTE’s legacy, the Palliyagodella massacre on 15 October 1991 remains one of the darkest. A band of heavily armed terrorists, reportedly including suicide operatives, descended on the Muslim farming village near Polonnaruwa. Eyewitness accounts describe how the attackers used automatic weapons, grenades, and machetes to kill villagers who had sought shelter in a mosque. The victims included women, children, and pregnant women, with 45 children among the dead. This massacre was part of a broader pattern of ethnic cleansing carried out by the LTTE against Sinhala and Muslim communities they viewed as obstacles to their pure-ethnic separatist goals.

A Sri Lankan Soldier Carrying a Women from the Liberated Area - Eelam War IV 

Despite that history, Tamil Guardian’s 5 July 2020 article,titled “Honouring the Sacrifices of the Black Tigers,” offered reverential language that many Sri Lankans found bewildering, if not offensive. 

It is highly questionable why a group of terrorists has to be "honoured" by a "responsible" media organization. Despite the group’s record of carrying out deadly terror attacks on the civilian population . Such a title risks sanitizing or legitimizing acts of terrorism and violence by treating members who engaged in suicide bombings as 'sacrifices', rather than critically reflecting on the suffering and loss inflicted upon innocent people. By casting the LTTE terrorists' actions primarily as “sacrifice,” the media outlet overlooks - and arguably trivializes - the profound human cost of their attacks, undermining the reality and gravity of civilian victimization.

"Why remember their sacrifice? To outside observers this day, this day may be difficult to understand. Why honour the sacrifices of these men and women? One should note, a certain irony of this criticism for whilst the LTTE is condemened for pioneering the use of Black Tigers, western history is filled with martyrs, ready to die for what they believe in. Be it Jan Has who is 1415 was burned at the stake as a heretic, or brave men of the First World War who walked across "no man's land" knowing that they would not return."

Tamil Guardian continues to say. 

It is particularly concerning that the publication draws direct comparisons between an organization responsible for systematic atrocities against civilian populations and First World War heroes and freedom fighters. This editorial approach to legitimizing terrorist activities not only facilitates the glorification of terrorism but also represents a fundamental breach of established ethics of journalism and professional standards. Such comparative framing undermines the principles of responsible reporting and raises serious questions about the publication's adherence to objective journalistic practice.

What makes the editorial choice more troubling is its cyclical nature. Tamil Guardian published near-identical tributes on 5 July 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, and again in 2025, each time reiterating a version of the same moral argument. By establishing an annual rhythm of homage and glorification the outlet normalizes the memory and terrorism of suicide bombers and embeds their celebration into the calendar of the Tamil diaspora. Absent from those commemorations are any substantive references to the bombings’ civilian victims, the trauma of survivors, or the lasting scars borne by Sri Lankan society. The silence on those dimensions renders the exercise less a balanced remembrance than a one-sided glorification.

While the suicide bombers receive repeated praise, they are not the only LTTE faction or figure honored by the media outlet. On 20 May 2008, for instance, Tamil Guardian prominently featured an essay titled “Reserved Hero: Brigadier Balraj,” borrowing its framing from a book by the wife of an another LTTE terrorist, Anton Balasingham. Balraj, known for mass crimes against humanity, is praised without meaningful qualification, as though his participation in a proscribed terrorist movement were a mere footnote to an illustrious life. That article, too, has been republished or re-circulated in 2015, 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021 with minimal editorial revision, reinforcing the notion that Tamil Guardian either disregards or underestimates the emotional toll such narratives extract from families still grappling with wartime loss and horror. Further still, the media outlet offers commemorative write-ups for the terrorists including Anton Balasingham, Thamilchelvam, Kittu and Miller, and female terrorists such as Malathy and Sothiya. 

While acknowledging Tamil Guardian's fundamental right to freedom of expression and editorial independence, the commemoration of terrorists responsible for crimes against humanity presents profound ethical concerns. Such editorial practices cause considerable distress to Sri Lankan communities who have suffered the loss of family members and loved ones due to terrorist activities. This approach to memorializing perpetrators of mass violence constitutes a serious breach of journalistic ethics, particularly regarding the principles of sensitivity toward victims and responsible reporting on matters of public trauma. The tension between press freedom and ethical responsibility becomes particularly acute when editorial choices risk retraumatizing affected communities and undermining the dignity of victims.

Kebithigollewa Massacre, Where LTTE Killed 60 Civilians Travelling on a Bus

The pattern of editorial indulgence extends beyond historical retrospectives of the armed conflict. On 4 April 2013, Tamil Guardian published an opinion essay titled “Politics and Cricket: Stepping Up to the Crease on Sri Lanka,” accusing the national cricket team of acting as diplomatic envoys to white-wash the alleged "systematic violence against the Tamil people".

 

"Sri Lanka cannot use its cricket team as ambassodors working to conseal the state's on-going systematic violence against the Tamil people"

No concrete evidence accompanied the Tamil Guardian's claim. 

Moreover, the article asserted that Sri Lankan players had become ambassadors for a “Sinhala regime,” an assertion that ignored the multiethnic makeup of Sri Lanka’s squad and the country’s enthusiasm for cricket as a rare source of national unity. The sweeping allegation that sports figures conspired to launder the government’s image amounted to unsubstantiated conjecture rather than rigorous analysis.

"In Sri Lanka, the cricketers have openly become ambassodors of the state's repression and been willing participants in the politicization of cricket" says Tamil Guardian.

A similar lapse surfaced on 21 October 2020 in an article titled “Murali’s Tainted Legacy,” which claims that legendary spin bowler Muttiah Muralitharan had been denied the captaincy of the national side owing to “immovable everyday racism that all Tamils in Sri Lanka have to endure.” The assertion neglected to mention that captaincy decisions in professional cricket hinge on complex variables - leadership aptitude, on-field strategy, and team dynamics - not solely ethnicity. Nor did the piece acknowledge Muralitharan’s own statements expressing contentment with his role on the team or the broad acclaim he receives across communal lines. By reducing a nuanced sporting narrative to a blunt instrument of ethnic grievance, the article risked stoking resentment rather than informing public debate. 

The cumulative effect of these patterns is to blur the border between legitimate critique of state policy and outright valorization of violence. Tamil Guardian often presents its tributes under the banner of free speech and the universal right to mourn the dead. Yet free speech is neither absolute nor devoid of consequence, particularly when exercised by an influential media platform. Journalism carries an ethical duty to examine violence with a critical lens, to contextualize it, and to acknowledge its victims. By repeatedly omitting the suffering of civilians murdered in suicide attacks or machete-wielding rampages, and by casting perpetrators as martyr-heroes, Tamil Guardian arguably surrenders that duty. In the process, it risks perpetuating a narrative that could radicalize disaffected youth and reopen wounds among communities still striving - however imperfectly - for reconciliation.

As we navigate a fragile post war landscape, the stakes of responsible journalism could not be higher. Sri Lanka’s Tamil minority endured not just the cross fire of two warring factions but also the psychological burden of being caught between a separatist militia and the military. Healing their trauma demands an information environment in which every victim is afforded dignity, every act of barbarism is condemned unequivocally, and every narrative is tested against verifiable facts. Anything less courts the danger of reigniting old hatreds or spawning new cycles of violence.

At theTamil, we do not deny Tamil Guardian - or any outlet - its right to publish. We hold sacrosanct the principles of free expression that safeguard our own reporting. Yet freedom of the press does not absolve anyone from the responsibility to weigh the societal consequences of glorifying suicide bombers, to interrogate claims with evidence, and to maintain empathy for readers who lost children, parents, spouses, or limbs in the orgy of violence that engulfed Sri Lanka for nearly three decades by LTTE. When commemorations of the Black Tigers are released each July without a whisper for the bus passengers massacred in Dandeniyaya or the devotees massacred at Sri Maha Bodhi, the imbalance is self-evident.

Our investigation concludes that Tamil Guardian’s editorial record exhibits a sustained pattern of framing the LTTE and its factions in laudatory tones, often stripped of context about their atrocities. Parallel articles levy sweeping, unsubstantiated accusations - particularly against Sri Lanka’s cricketing fraternity - that appear more rhetorical than evidentiary. These practices, taken together, undermine the core tenets of ethical journalism: accuracy, impartiality, and sensitivity to harm. They also risk inflaming communal tensions at a moment when Sri Lanka needs sober reflection, not romanticized militancy or blanket delegitimization of shared cultural endeavors.

The path toward durable peace on the island is arduous, lined with memories of checkpoints, bombed temples, and untold political missteps. It passes, however, through a clearing where competing narratives can coexist without erasing victims or valorizing killers. Serious journalism lights the way by honoring the complexity of history, subjecting each claim to rigorous proof, and above all, remembering that every statistic masks a human face. We remain steadfast in our commitment to that vision, confident that truthful storytelling, even when painful, is the most reliable defense against the return of violence and the surest expression of respect for those who suffered through Sri Lanka’s long night.

We reached out to Tamil Guardian for comment on these allegations; however, they did not respond.