Five Tamils have been released on bail after they were arrested by Sri Lankan police earlier today during a peaceful protest against the illegally constructed Buddhist temple in Thaiyiddy, Jaffna. 

Protesters gathered outside the illegally built and controversial Tissa Vihara Buddhist temple in Thaiyiddy today to demand the release of the privately owned land that has been encroached upon by the Buddhist temple and to oppose the promotion of a senior monk. 

The Batticaloa High Court granted bail to Ampitiye Sumanarathana, an extremist Buddhist monk who incited violence against Tamils.

The Batticaloa Magistrate’s Court had previously issued an arrest warrant after Sumanarathana failed to appear before the court for the hearing on December 15. 

The Sri Lankan government is expected to nominate Colonel O.R Rajasinghe as the Auditor General, in a move which is considered to undermine the independence of the office and further militarisation of government institutions.

The post of Auditor General has remained vacant since 8 April, and the constitutional council has rejected previous nominees proposed by President Anura Kumara Dissanayake due to multiple conflicts of interest and concerns that the independence of the office would be compromised. 

The British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) Court of Appeal upheld a ruling that Tamil asylum seekers were unlawfully detained on the island of Diego Garcia.

In December 2024, the BIOT Supreme Court ruled that 64 Tamil asylum seekers, including sixteen children, had been unlawfully detained on Diego Garcia, part of the Chagos Islands and home to a UK-US military base.

The family of three people injured in a car collision involving former Speaker and National People’s Power (NPP) parliamentarian Asoka Ranwala has raised serious concerns over the impartiality and pace of the police investigation, fuelling renewed scrutiny over political privilege and impunity in Sri Lanka.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) have highlighted how systemic discrimination compounded the impact of Cyclone Ditwah on communities already facing "multiple vulnerabilities".