Sri Lanka’s foreign secretary Jayanath Colombage vowed that his government would not “surrender” at the UN Human Rights Council, where a new resolution on accountability for mass atrocities is being considered, and instead trashed UN estimates of 70,000 Tamil civilians having been killed during the final phase of the armed conflict.

Speaking to Roar Media, the former Navy Admiral criticised the recent UN High Commissioners report as being “unfounded” and “not based on facts”. He added that UN estimates of 70,000 Tamil civilians killed in the final phases of the armed conflict are flawed as there are no “bodies” or “skeletons” and that “there had not been that many [civilian] loses during the final stages of the war”.

Following this, Colombage went on to state that the “army had to exercise restraint” in the final stages of the war as “they did not want to kill civilians” and followed their “zero [civilian] casualties” strategy. He added the military forces had become their “protectors” taking them to “various centres” and that after a “lapse of a few years” they were allowed to go home and questioned why the government is accused of human rights abuses.

Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) Chairman G.L. Peiris claimed the Sri Lankan government “wouldn’t hesitate” to make constitutional amendments to guarantee protection for their armed forces from potential war crimes trials.

His comments to The Island, came following a damning report released by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights which urged member states to consider asset freezes and travel bans on Sri Lankan officials, as well as pursuing trials in their respective national courts. His remarks come as the 46th session of the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) is underway in Geneva.

The former foreign secretary speaking at an SLPP press brief told reporters, that the constitution could be amended to protect the armed forces, stating the UNHRC is pursuing an “agenda” against Sri Lanka.

Despite rising international concern over the deteriorating human conditions in Sri Lanka, the UK has outpaced China as a direct investor into the Sri Lanka economy.

Based on data by the Board of Investment (BOI), a Sri Lankan agency tasked with promoting long-term investments, the UK accounted for the majority of foreign direct investment (FDI) in 2020, accounting for 24% whilst China only accounted for 12%.

Tamil Guardian correspondent Kanapathipillai Kumanan was intimidated and harassed by three Sri Lankan Forest Department officials in Mullaitivu on 27th February. 

US Secretary of State Antony Blinked paid tribute to Ranitha Gnanarajah this week, as he awarded her the Secretary of State’s International Women of Courage Award for 2021 in a virtual ceremony.

Gnanarajah, a Tamil lawyer who has worked with the Centre for Human Rights and Development (CHRD), was praised by Blinken as he spoke at the ceremony.

Dr Jill Biden, the US First Lady, also paid tribute to the women from around the world who received the award.

A British Tamil woman who has been on hunger strike in London, demanding the international community deliver justice for the Tamil genocide, has entered her 12^th day of protest this morning.

“I studied Tamil ma’am.” This seemingly innocuous statement poleaxed my new history teacher. I had just completed Class 10 (the Indian equivalent of GCSE) and recently joined the Kendriya Vidyalaya, a system of schools run by the central Ministry of Education, for the final two years of my schooling. My history tutor was shocked because the school did not offer the language I said I studied until the previous year. And it was compulsory to do a language in addition to English in order to be eligible to sit the final exams (A Levels). One might presume that I’d have moved out of Tamil Nadu for high school. I kid you not, I still lived in the heart of Chennai, the capital of the only Tamil-speaking state in the Indian union! 

Protests were held in Paris, which called on the international community to refer Sri Lanka to the International Criminal Court (ICC) for the war crimes and genocide the state had perpetrated against Tamil people during the peak of the armed struggle in 2009. 

Twelve lawyers, all Presidents’ Counsels, have made a written complaint that some of the recommendations in the report of the Presidential Commission of Inquiry (PCoI), which was appointed to probe incidents of Political Victimisation of public servants, may be undermining the rule of law, the independence of the judiciary, and maybe eroding the impartial and efficient functioning of the Attorney General’s Department. 

Pavunraj Sulaxan, who was one of the two Jaffna University students to be shot dead by Sri Lankan police on 21 October 2016, was commemorated on his 28^th birthday by students at the University. 

Nadarasa Kajan, 23, and Pavunraj Sulaxan, 24, were students from the university's arts faculty when they were murdered. Five Sri Lankan policemen were later suspended and arrested over the deaths in 2016.