On behalf of @UKLabour, I wish Tamils in the UK and across the world a happy, healthy and bountiful #Pongal. Thai Pongal Valthukkal! pic.twitter.com/o2sEU79fzB

— Keir Starmer (@Keir_Starmer) January 14, 2021

Labour leader, Kier Starmer, raises deep concerns over Sri Lanka’s human rights record and calls upon the government to be “a strong voice on international accountability” during his Thai Pongal message.

Jaffna Municipal Council passed a resolution yesterday calling for the construction of a new Mullivaikkal memorial monument within the boundaries of the Council's premises. 

The resolution was passed unanimously at the first Council session of the year under the chairmanship of V Mannivannan. The resolution comes after authorities toppled the Mullivaikkal memorial monument at the University of Jaffna last week which sparked widespread protests in the North-East and across the world. 

The demolition of the Memorial at the Jaffna University can only been seen as an attempt to erase the genocide by the Sinhala racist racism and its ugly face, the Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam (TGTE) has said.

In a statement last week, the organisation's political affairs lead highlighted that "genocide of the Tamil people in the island of Lanka is a state policy of the Government of Sri Lanka" and that bans against memorialisation "showed that there was no political space in the island of Lanka for the Tamil people to express their feelings".

In a series of tweets French MP François Pupponi expressed his solidarity with Tamils and avowed to fight for the recognition of war crimes committed against the Tamil people. Pupponi is the MP for the department Val-d’Oise in the Île-de-France region (The regional capital of which is Paris.)

Tamil cattle farmers in Batticaloa, who went in search of their missing cattle were kidnapped, and then brutally beaten by armed Sinhalese men, last Saturday. After attacking the farmers, the Sinhalese men then handed them over to Maha Oya police officials to arrest them and filed a case against them.

A few days later, the six farmers who were also subject to police brutality in custody, were released on bail after being produced in court.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) called on Sri Lanka's prosecutors to drop the absurd terrorism charges against a Tamil journalist detained under the notorious Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA). 

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson paid tribute to the British Tamil community and thanked them for their contribution towards the coronavirus pandemic response in the country, in a message to mark Thai Pongal released today.

Johnson said he wanted to “thank you for everything you’re doing in our struggle against COVID, because throughout this crisis your values of hard work, discipline and community spirit have really shone brightly”.

Sri Lankan president Gotabaya Rajapaksa issued a chilling warning on Saturday, as he threatened to “bring back” his role as defence secretary and disparagingly spoke of how Sri Lankan security forces killed LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran.  

In response to a critical parliamentary speech by opposition MP Harin Fernando, Rajapaksa warned that he has “two faces”.

Canada’s Chief Government Whip, Mark Holland, has condemned the destruction of the Mullivaikkal memorial in Jaffna as an attempt to erase “erase the memory of thousands of massacred Tamils”.

On Twitter he stated:

British Shadow Minister for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, Stephen Kinnock, has called upon ministers to “defend the rights of minorities in Sri Lanka” as he laid out the Labour party’s new foreign policy agenda yesterday.