The story of Gary Anandansagaree, Canada’s Minister of Public Safety, is impressive. He came to the country as a child just weeks after the Black July pogrom of 1983, where Sri Lankan state-backed mobs murdered thousands of Tamils just like him.
The number of human skeletons uncovered from the mass grave sites in Chemmani, Jaffna, has reached 126, with 117 remains fully exhumed, as court-supervised excavations continued this week at two designated forensic sites.
The administration of Anura Kumara Dissanayake has taken aim at longstanding privileges enjoyed by the country’s political elite, releasing a draft bill to amend the Presidents’ Entitlements Act No. 4 of 1986 and signalling its intention to revoke the lifetime perks afforded to former presidents and Members of Parliament.
A Sri Lankan court has acquitted and released two former military intelligence officers accused of abducting and assaulting a journalist and two state officials in 2008, in a case that has drawn renewed scrutiny over impunity for state-linked violence.
A newly released Telugu film titled Kingdom has come under fire for its portrayal of Eelam Tamils, with widespread criticism erupting online and calls for the film to be banned.
Families of the forcibly disappeared in Sri Lanka have reiterated their rejection of domestic accountability mechanisms, warning that justice cannot be achieved within a system that has repeatedly failed Tamil victims and continues to shield alleged perpetrators of war crimes and genocide.
Former Sri Lankan Navy Commander Admiral Nishantha Ulugetenne has been arrested by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) over allegations linked to the abduction and murder of an individual in the Pothuhera area, in a case drawing renewed scrutiny over Sri Lanka’s accountability for human rights violations.
Excavations at the Chemmani mass grave site in Jaffna have revealed further chilling discoveries, with the number of identified skeletal assemblages now rising to 118, including one adult skeleton found in a posture cradling the remains of a small child.