A mass protest was held in front of the Vavuniya District Secretariat and Divisional Secretariat on Monday following the release of a beneficiaries list for the government's Aswesuma welfare program that left many vulnerable communities out whilst privileging those abroad, government employees and the wealthy.

Last Wednesday, a collective of women from low-income families in Mannar gathered to protest against their exclusion from the Sri Lankan government's Aswesuma welfare program.

They maintain that they were systematically excluded from the list of beneficiaries whilst those wealthy, with multiple assets and government, connects were privileged. 

In the early hours of last Thursday, 22 Tamil Nadu fishermen were arrested by Sri Lanka's Navy for allegedly illegally entering Sri Lankan waters and engaging in fishing activities.

They remain in detention. The Tamil Nadu fisherfolk were initally discovered by the Navy while they were patrolling near Delft Island. The fisherfolk were on board three boats, which were also seized by the Navy.

A new joint report, 'Mass Graves and Failed Exhumations', details a pattern of systematic failures by Sri Lanka to exhume and investigate mass graves across the island.  

Speaking at the UN Human Rights Council, UN Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights, Nada Al-Nasif stressed in her update on Sri Lanka the importance of accountability and raised concern over the Sri Lanka’s president’s “heavy-handed approach to protests” and proposed replacement to the Prevention of Terrorism Act.

The Core Group on Sri Lanka stressed the importance of “building meaningfully on past work and recommendations that address the root causes of conflicts and impunity” in a statement at the 53rd session of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC). 

The Core Group, made up of Canada, Malawi, Montenegro, North Macedonia, the UK and the United States, also expressed their concerns over the island’s continued use of the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA). 

Local Tamils are protesting the ongoing illegal construction of a Buddhist temple at Kurunthumalai, an ancient Tamil temple site.

Sinhala Buddhist monks aided by the Sri Lankan archeology department are constructing the shrine in defiance of a court order which states no changes could be made to the site. The archaeology department have used the guise of 'excavation' work to assist Sinhala Buddhist monks to erect a Buddhist shrine. 

Image courtesy of Tamilwin

Asokakumar Lalitha, an Eelam Tamil refugee who had been seeking asylum status in Indonesia since 2012, passed away on June 19. 

Lalitha had been living with her husband and two children in a refugee camp in Medan, Indonesia. She had been suffering from severe diabetes and had been denied access to adequate medical facilities to treat her condition.

Tamil National Alliance (TNA) MP Charles Nirmalanathan has alleged that up to 250 acres of land in the Veerapuram area that were supposed to be handed over to Tamil families have been illegally occupied by Sinhala settlers.

In 1994, Tamil families were settled on 400 acres of land that was allocated in the Cheddikulam Divisional Secretariat. Each family was promised 1 acre of land for their livelihood development. However, these lands have not yet been distributed to the families.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk called on Sri Lanka to implement the UN's recommendations related to accountability in his statement at the 53rd session of the UN Human Rights Council. 

He stated that: