<p>Visiting UN Special Rapporteur, Clément Nyalestsossi Voule met with the Chief Justice and High court judges despite assurance from the Speaker earlier this week to block the scheduled meeting.</p> <p>Speaker of Parliament, Karu Jayasuriya, said there had been a meeting between the UN Special Rapporteur and the Chief Justice but noted that it was a courtesy call in the company of foreign ministry officials.</p> <p>Ministry Additional Secretary Ahmed A Jawad had to written to the Chief Justice and High Court judges, telling them to provide the UN official with details regarding specific cases that are currently being heard by the Court.</p>

Sri Lankan soldiers have organised yet another music show in Jaffna, as thousands of troops remain stationed in the Northern city despite calls for demilitarisation.

The Sri Lankan government announced that Viraj Mendis, the Sinhalese chairperson of the International Human Rights Association – Bremen (IMRV), has been added to their list of known “terrorists” in an updated gazette notification that has been slammed as a "escalation in political repression".

Mendis, who joins dozens of other Tamils who have been on the list, is accused of “funding terrorism”.

The Sri Lanka Freedom Party’s (SLFP) former General Secretary Rohana Lakshman Piyadasa lashed out at the Tamil diaspora for “undermining Sri Lanka” and criticised the United National Party (UNP) for allowing the 1983 Black July pogrom to take place and giving Sri Lanka “a bad name”.

“It was a pogrom against Tamils by a few Sinhalese aided and abetted by the J.R. Jayawardene regime,” claimed current secretary Dayasiri Jayasekera at a press conference on Wednesday.

A British woman who was raped by a local employee at a hotel in Bentota and subsequently found she was pregnant, has had her case referred to the European Court of Justice.

The woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was raped by an electrician employed by her hotel the Club Bentota in Sri Lanka,. She subsequently discovered she was pregnant and had to undergo testing to ensure the baby’s father was her husband, reports Herald Scotland.

Her case has now been referred to the European Court of Justice, as she attempts to claim compensation from Kuoni Travel Ltd, the tour operator through which she booked the luxury holiday.

British authorities announced they would launch an investigation after human waste was reported to be part of a tranche of hazardous waste exported to Sri Lanka and discovered in over 100 containers at Colombo port this week.

Some of the 111 containers date as having arrived far back as 2017, and reportedly contain body parts and syringes, mixed with mattresses and other plastics. The containers had apparently been disguised to make it seem as if they held recyclable metals.

Prosecutors have charged a Tamil man in Germany over claims he was involved in the 2005 assassination of Sri Lanka's foreign minister, Lakshman Kadirgamar.

Authorities announced that the man, Navanithan G, has been charged as an accessory to murder and with membership of a foreign terrorist organization.

A United Nations delegation led by Special Rapporteur Clément Nyalestsossi Voule met with protesting Tamil villagers from Keppapilavu last week, as they continued to demand the Sri Lankan military vacate their land.

Voule is leading a delegation to assess rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association on the island.

His visit to Keppapilavu comes as Tamil villagers continued their protest, which has gone on for more than 870 days so far.

The victims of Black July, the horrific anti-Tamil pogrom of 1983 when thousands of Tamils were killed by Sinhala mobs backed by the then UNP government and state forces, were remembered across the Tamil homeland on Tuesday, thirty-six years on.

British Tamils held a protest at Downing Street this evening, as they marked 36 years since the Black July pogrom where thousands of Tamils were killed by rampaging Sinhala mobs.