The Uthayan newspaper has hit back at Tamil National Alliance (TNA) spokesperson M A Sumanthiran’s claim that the paper had printed “totally false” news, calling his claims “baffling” and standing by a story on how the Illankai Tamil Arasu Kachchi (ITAK) did not oppose the armed Tamil struggle.

Sri Lanka has launched an investigation into a racially motivated police assault of 14-year-old Muslim autistic boy, Thariq Ahamed, who was stopped at the southern town of Aluthgama and beaten for breaking curfew.

The investigation follows protests on social media as CCTV of the assault was shared. Thariq Ahamed was beaten by five policemen and two passers-by who later tied the boy to a post near a checkpoint until his father came and pleaded for his release.

Tamils around the world marked 46 years since the death of  Ponnuthurai Sivakumaran, the first Tamil to die in the liberation struggle. 

At his home town in Urumpirai in Jaffna, senior Tamil politicians held a series of events to mark his sacrifice and pay tribute to his role as the first militant to die in the armed struggle.

<p>The Centre of Policy Alternatives (CPA) is deeply concerned with the appointment of two Presidential Task Forces by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa.&nbsp;</p> <p>Earlier this week, the president established a Task Force consisting of entirely military and police personnel to build a "virtuous, disciplined and lawful society" in Sri Lanka which raises "extremely serious implications that require urgent attention" says the CPA.&nbsp;</p>

The Sri Lankan government has blocked access to renowned Tamil news website Sankathi24.com, as the state continued with its tightening of the Tamil press.

The website – www.sankathi24.com – became inaccessible for those on the island on May 28^th last month, with no warning or explanation given by the Sri Lankan state.

The latest incident sparked fears for the website’s correspondents who remain in the Tamil homeland. “We fear for the lives of our reporters in Tamil Eelam," said Seraman, a columnist, for Sankathi24.com. “We fear that they may be tracked down.”

The Sri Lankan navy has arrested at least six people in Mannar this morning, after a 33-year-old man and his 8-year-old daughter arrived by boat from India this week.

The father and daughter, who were both reportedly from Mannar but had been displaced to an Indian refugee camp in 1990, arrived earlier this week. They had been taken into custody by Sri Lankan security forces before being sent to a coronavirus detention centre in Batticaloa.

A Tamil father who has spent more than a decade searching for his forcibly disappeared son passed away in Vavuniya today, without ever knowing the fate of his child.

Sinnachami Nallathambi was aged 71-years-old and just days ago had taken part in a protest marking 1,200 days of continuous demonstrations by Tamil families of the disappeared in Vavuniya.

Peel District School Board has issued a "clarification" regarding its statement made on May 18 to commemorate the Mullivaikkal Genocide, after receiving backlash from the Sri Lankan embassy in Canada and a campaign by the Canadian Sinhala community.

The school board issued a statement yesterday, confirming that it was in response to concerns raised by "several members of the community and information received by the Consul General of Sri Lanka".

Peels Schools original tweet which was welcomed by the Canadian Tamil community said:

Major General Senerath Bandara assumed his duties as the 19th Commander Security Forces- East at the Welikanda Security Forces HQ. 

A few weeks ago, Tamil news cycles were dominated by coverage of an interview given by the Tamil National Alliance Spokesperson M.A. Sumanthiran to a Sinhala media site. During the course of the interview, he made several comments which created controversy and outrage amongst Tamils. 

The resulting conversation in Sri Lanka’s English-language spaces however failed to discern the actual issues. Instead, commentators opposed to the idea of Tamil nationalism, both Tamil and Sinhala, focused on the “traitorisation” phenomenon in Tamil politics, which predates the war and resulted in the killing of Tamil “moderates” by the LTTE and others. 

One writer, a relative of Sumanthiran, even spuriously claimed “traitorisation is running amok again,” comparing the current verbal attacks to a time when so-called “traitors” were hung from lamp-posts and assassinated. The trivialisation of this “traitorisation” issue by many throws doubt on whether they were made due to a genuine desire for Tamil introspection about these issues. Rather the intention appeared to be to use it to attack Tamil nationalism and to paint Sumanthiran as a victim of these “Tamil extremists”.