Thousands protested in Mullaitivu town on Tuesday after a controversial Buddhist monk was cremated the previous day in the grounds of a Hindu temple, despite local opposition and in direct breach of a court injunction.

The Sri Lankan is reportedly set to lose several million dollars of funding through the United States’ Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), according to reports in the Colombo press after a public forum last week.

Speaking at a forum organised by Advocata Institute, Resident Country Director for the MCC Jenner Edelman said that Sri Lanka’s transition to an upper middle-income country may no longer be eligible for the funding.

Edelman also spoke about how the Sri Lankan government had delayed in signing the next phase of the agreement.

Tensions were high in Mullaitivu on Monday as the deceased monk of a controversial Buddhist vihara in Semmalai was cremated in the grounds of a Hindu temple, despite a court injunction prohibiting the funeral rites from being carried out on the temple’s premises.

The funeral was led by extremist Buddhist monk Gnanasara of the Sinhala nationalist Bodu Bala Sena organisation, recently released from prison after being pardoned by the Sri Lankan government, and attended by dozens of Sinhalese who were transported to the area from the South.

Sri Lanka’s former defence secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa and seven others have been acquitted of all charges filed against them by the Bribery Commission, over the case of the ‘Avant Garde’ private security firm accused of running floating armouries. 

 

A Sri Lankan navy admiral who has been investigated as a suspect over the disappearance of 11 Tamil youths has been promoted to the highest rank in the military in an elaborate ceremony last week.

Sri Lanka and Cambodia should “work together to spread teachings of Theravada Buddhism throughout the world,” said Sri Lanka’s president Maithripala Sirisena, whilst attending a Buddhist religious service in Phnom Penh last month.

Sirisena, who has increasingly burnished his Sinhala Buddhist nationalist credentials, said Buddhism “is the historical foundation of the relations between Sri Lanka and Cambodia” and called for closer ties between the two governments.

Tamils in Mullaitivu lamented the lack of progress in releasing their lands from Sri Lankan military occupation as locals from Keppapilavu demonstrated in front of a Sri Lankan government office last month.

<p>The Leader of the National Freedom Front, MP&nbsp;Wimal Weerawansa, spoke at a press briefing where he expressed anger at US personnel who he claimed did not have their luggage inspected by security as they checked into a Colombo hotel.</p> <p>Weerawansa went on to claim that Sri Lanka’s security apparatus has been weakened to a state where US personnel might come and go as they please without allowing the security forces to inspect their belongings.</p>

<p>Thiraviyarajah Subramaniyam, a 37-year-old Tamil refugee and torture survivor, is currently detained under “hellish” conditions on Manus Island, an Australian offshore detention centre in Papua New Guinea, and has launched an appeal to join and settle with his sister in the UK.&nbsp;</p>

The Tamil National Peoples’ Front (TNPF) reiterated its call that Sri Lanka should be referred to the International Criminal Court (ICC) more than a decade after a military offensive killed tens of thousands of Tamil civilians.

TNPF leader Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam addressed the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on Friday, stating that the report of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights Investigation in Sri Lanka (OISL) “has been the most damning report on Sri Lanka so far”.