^{Photo credit: IBC Tamil}

A Tamil journalist who went to cover the Pottuvil to Polikandy (P2P) protest march earlier this month, was attacked by men in a white van.

IBC Tamil journalist, Rajinthan was injured as a result of an unprovoked assault on Friday 5^th February 2020.

India has offered a $12 million grant to Sri Lanka in an attempt to displace a contract with a Chinese company to install three renewable energy plants on islands just off the Jaffna Peninsula and around 50km from Tamil Nadu.

The Hindu notes that a number of northern Tamil political parties have voiced opposition to Chinese involvement in the project due to security concerns to Tamils and India.

Following claims by Sri Lankan Prime Minister, Mahinda Rajapaksa, that Sri Lanka would repeal its international condemned policy of forced cremations, government minister, Udaya Gammanpila, has confirmed that there will be no changes and has claimed that the final decision will be made by Director General of Health Services Dr Asela Gunawardena.

Last week, photographs of Muthiah Theivendran, a Tamil father searching for his forcibly disappeared son, went viral across social media.

Muthiah was part of the tens of thousands of Tamil protestors who rallied across the North-East earlier this month, during the Pottuvil to Polikandy demonstration. But it wasn’t the image of him marching alongside the masses that caught the attention of social media users. Instead, it was a photograph of the elderly, bearded gentleman, cutting a desolate figure, as he walked barefoot and alone after the protest had ended.

He was still wearing his mask, his red and yellow headband from the protest and still clutching a photograph of his disappeared son.

The office of Sri Lanka's President has slammed a recent statement by former US Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes, Stephen Rapp, which revealed that Rajapaksa had admitted to the killing of LTTE leaders, during an offensive that saw the massacre of tens of thousands of Tamils.

See the clip of Rapp speaking and the full video of the webinar below.

A Tamil journalist was threatened and harassed by ‘investigators’ at the Vavuniya families of the disappeared (FOD) protest on Friday 4th February.  

An awards ceremony was jointly organised by the International Chamber of Commerce of Sri Lanka (ICCSL), the Chartered institute of Management Accountants (CIMA) and the Daily Financial Times newspaper decided to bestow a "Leadership with Distinction" award to Sri Lanka's General Shavendra Silva, an accused war criminal who is barred from entry to the United States over his role in executing Tamils.

Silva received the award at the “Most Admired Companies of Sri Lanka 2020” ceremony last week, where he was the chief guest and the Deputy High Commissioner of India, Vinod K Jacob was the guest honour.

In an interview for Just Security, Former UN Human Rights High Commissioner, Navanethem (Navi) Pillay urged the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) and member states to take action to hold Sri Lanka accountable for war-time atrocities and human rights violations.

“It is time for the HRC to make a drastic departure from its customary complacency over the failures of the Sri Lankan government and hold it to account for its non-compliance with HRC resolutions”.

Writing in Just Security, Daniela Gavshon, Director of the Truth and Accountability program at the Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) highlights the findings of their latest report, “Tides of Violence”, a project aims to compile a record of wartime abuses and to the enter them onto a detailed conflict map.

Responding to increasing demands for war crimes accountability from Tamil civil society actors and international human rights bodies, Sri Lanka’s former army commander, Sarath Fonseka, addressed the media and maintained that there was no cause for concern as no government would “betray” the military.

“The forces will not be betrayed. And no harm will be allowed to come to them. Whatever the party, it is our policy as a country.”