Police Posts in Chidambarapuram and Nelukkulam areas of Vavuniya District, have been upgraded to the rank of ‘Police Stations’ and were inaugurated earlier today. 

The inauguration of new police stations indicates the growing securitisation of the Tamil homeland by the Sri Lankan government. 

TNA parliamentarian, Shanakiyan Rasamanickam, criticised the Sri Lankan government for arresting over 100 Tamil youngsters in the past year for allegedly “posting propaganda on social media” and demanded their immediate release.  

Protests have erupted in Batticaloa this evening after a Sri Lankan Ministerial Security Division (MSD) officer attached to ruling government parliamentarian Sathasivam Viyalendiran shot dead a Tamil man earlier today.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet raised concerns over the targeting of Muslims and harassment of Tamils by the Sri Lankan government, as she opened the 47th session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva earlier today.

Targeted harassment

^{Scene of shooting - MP Sathasivam Vivalendiran House}

A Tamil man has been shot in the head by security forces outside of the Sri Lankan Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) MP Sathasivam Viyalendiran's house in Batticaloa earlier today.

Photograph courtesy of Home to Bilo

A Tamil refugee family have been reunited after being moved to community detention in Perth, Australia, following the medical evacuation of their three year old daughter to a hospital as she was being denied treatment by detention centre staff at Christmas Island.

Sri Lankan army commander and accused war criminal Shavendra Silva has suspended several Sri Lankan soldiers after they were caught humiliating locals in Eravur by forcing them to kneel down and raise their hands last week.

The Sri Lankan army ‘launched the probe’ after viral images circulated on social media showing rows of men kneeling before soldiers for allegedly violating Sri Lanka’s current lockdown restrictions in Eravur.

Mohammed Ismail Marzook, 44, told The Hindu, “I just went on my bicycle to buy my diabetes medicine at our local pharmacy, and a little bit of rice nearby. I even showed the empty box of my pills, but the soldiers forced me to kneel down right there along with some others, with my hands raised.”

“I explained to them in Sinhala that I am a patient, and that I stepped out only to buy medicines, which is allowed. But they wouldn’t listen, and kept beating me, like they would cattle.”

Batticaloa Magistrates court ordered a second autopsy last Friday for the Tamil youth "beaten to death" by police.

Tamil lawyer, Sugas Kanagaratnam described Batticaloa Magistrates ruling to exhume the youth’s body as a “historic judgement”.  

Sri Lanka's Terrorism Investigation Department (TID) questioned the leader of the Hindu extremist organisation Siva Senai, Maru Sachithananthan over alleged links to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). 

Satchithananthan was questioned for over two hours by the TID on Thursday over the alleged connection to the organisation which was militarily defeated by Sri Lanka's security forces at the end of the armed conflict in 2009.

Tamil activists in London February 2019

Following a landmark Upper Tribunal ruling, the Home Office has been forced to amend its country policy guidance to reflect the threat of torture peaceful Tamil activists face in Sri Lanka.