Sri Lankan soldiers have begun constructing installations to celebrate the Buddhist festival of Vesak in the popular grounds where May Day rallies usually take place, forcing May Day rally organisers to find alternative locations this year.

Sri Lanka’s minister of Ports and Shipping Mahinda Samarasinghe said that the Sri Lanka Freedom Party will hold its party May day rally in Batticaloa. 

The SLFP Central Committee has taken this decision during the meeting headed by Persistent Maithripala Sirisena said the minister, reports the Sri Lanka Boradcasting Cooperation. 

Minister Nimal Siripala De Silva has been appointed to organise the May Day Rally, added Mr Samarasinghe.

The European Court of Justice has ruled that asylum seekers who faced risk of “significantly and irreversibly worsened” mental health upon return to their country of origin were due protection under the European Convention on Human Rights.

Using the case of a Tamil asylum seeker from Sri Lanka seeking protection in Britain, the ECJ said,

“It is established case-law that the “inadequacy” of Sri Lanka’s health system was not contested, and it was ‘solely’ up to a national (EU member nation) court to assess whether the man, if returned, would remain protected from ill-health in terms of European Convention on Human Rights.”

Villagers from Iranaitivu staged a massive protest this week, sailing to their island which is occupied by the Sri Lankan military and marching to their homes, refusing to leave until they are guaranteed their land will be returned to them.

In a striking and daring demonstration on Monday some 300 Tamils sailed to the island, which has been occupied by the Sri Lankan navy for years. Villagers marched from their protest site on the Kilinochchi district mainland to the coastline where their fishing boats had docked.

China has reiterated that there are no plans of militarising Sri Lanka’s southern Hambantota report reiterated Sri Lanka’s prime minister Ranil Wickrememsinghe after a meeting with the Chinese Ambassador to Sri Lanka Cheng Xueyuan.

Responding to press concerns about Chinese militarisation of the port, Ambassador Xueyuan said,

The blood of Sinhalese soldiers runs in Tamils that have received treatment at the Jaffna Teaching Hospital, the governor of the Northern Province said on Sunday.

Echoing previous statements he had made about Tamil blood being mixed with Sinhalese, the governor, Reginald Cooray, said that the armed forces donated blood to the Jaffna Teaching Hospital whenever the need arose.

The governor made the remarks at the opening of two new buildings at a Tamil-diaspora funded cultural centre in Punguduthivu.

14 Sri Lankan soldiers from the Vavuniya - Pampaimadu camp were admitted to hospital on Sunday with alleged breathing problems.

The soldiers reportedly developed sudden breathing problems during a training exercise on Sunday morning and were rushed to Vavuniya General Hospital.

Several soldiers were also reported to have received first aid at the camp.

The Sri Lankan Army has re-seized some lands in Valikamam North that were released to their owners earlier this month.

Just two days after releasing around 683 acres from the 28-year occupation of the ’high security zone’, Sri Lankan soldiers blocked off access and reoccupied lands in Thaiyiddi South - Unthuvathai, and the area surrounding the Vellaivaikkal Vairavar temple.

The legacy of Sri Lanka’s human rights abuses was planned to be a main topic of discussion at this year’s Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in London, according to a UK parliamentary Foreign Affairs Select Committee document.

Referring to remarks made by the British Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson, the select committee document said that “the legacy of human rights abuses in Sri Lanka” would be a main topic to be discussed as part of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s strategic vision for the summit.

The Tamil National People’s Front paid tribute to Annai Poopathy at the party’s Jaffna headquarters on Thursday.