The international organisation dedicated to press freedom, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has called on the Jaffna Magistrate’s Court to dismiss the case brought against Tamil Uthayan newspaper under the draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) which is due to be heard on Tuesday.

See the tweet here.

Earlier last month, Sri Lankan police filed a case against the Jaffna-based newspaper for publishing images and quotes of Velupillai Prabhakaran, leader of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), on his birthday, 26 November.

US Ambassador to Sri Lanka and the Maldives, Alaina B. Teplitz, has criticised Sri Lanka’s policy of forced cremations stating that COVID “should not cost us our compassion and respect for another’s beliefs”.

Ahimsa Wickrematunge, the daughter of murdered journalist Lasantha Wickrematunge wrote a piece for Groundviews marking the 12th anniversary of his death and detailing why his killers have never punished. 

Lasantha Wickrematunge had been investigating a deal made towards the end of the armed conflict in 2009, in which the Sri Lankan air force was looking to buy new bomber jets. The planes supplied to the Rajapaksa regime were used to indiscriminately bomb Tamil civilians in the closing stages of the war and a portion of the money used to purchase the planes were redirected to close associates of the Rajapaksa’s.

The removal of over 7,000 voters from the Northern Province's electoral list is a "Violation of a basic human right," claimed Member of Parliament Rishad Bathiudeen, in a letter to Sri Lanka's election commission this week.

The All Ceylon Makkal Congress (ACMC) leader wrote to the Elections Commission, condemning the “unjust” act of removing the names of 7,727 residents originally from the Northern District and demanded that necessary steps be taken to register the individuals in their native electoral lists.

Hundreds of French Tamils gathered in Paris earlier this week, condemning the destruction of the Mullivaikal memorial monument and expressing solidarity with Jaffna University students.

What started off as a car rally at La Chapelle on Tuesday 12^th January, concluded as a protest at Hôtel des Invalides.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) has condemned Sri Lanka’s continued policy of forced cremations noting that the denial of burial rights was “causing intense distress, stoking communal hatred, and is without any scientific basis”.

The involvement of Sri Lanka’s army in the Department of Irrigation has been strongly condemned as the military opened the four floodgates of Muttiankaddu pond in Mullaitivu on Sunday.

Vidura Wickramanayaka, Sri Lanka's state minister for 'national heritage', accompanied by army soldiers and archaeology department officers, led an event on Monday at Kurunthoormalai in which a new Buddha statue was placed and consecrated at the site of the Athi Aiyanar temple.

The temple site, on a hilltop in the Kumulamunai area of  Mullaitivu, has been the target of intense landgrab efforts by Sinhala Buddhist monks, met with fierce resistance from locals which in 2018 led to a court order decreeing that no changes could be made to the site. The court also stated that the archaeology department had abused its power in allowing Buddhist monks to survey the area.

While Tamils have been resisting several attempts at landgrabs and Sinhalisation across the North-East, and particularly in Mullaitivu, fronted by state agencies such as the archaeology department and forest department, the minister's presence in Monday's landgrab represents the first time the Sri Lankan government has openly demonstrated its involvement in the colonisation.

In advance of the 46^th Human Rights Council session, Amnesty International has urged the UN to establish an international accountability mechanism in Sri Lanka to monitor the human rights situations, warning that if there was insufficient progress, that the Human Rights Council must take “international action to ensure accountability”.

Responding to a question posed by UK Shadow Minister for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Ruth Jones, about Sri Lankan forced, Minister for Asia at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Department for International Development, Nigel Adams,  expressed the UK's repeated concern over minority rights in Sri Lanka.