In their annual report, Freedom House has maintained that Sri Lanka is only “partly free” as they highlighted systemic discrimination against Tamils, violent threats from Sri Lanka’s security forces and Sinhala Buddhist extremists, forced Sinhalisation and land grabs, as well as a litany of further abuses.

An updated draft United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) resolution on Sri Lanka was released this morning, showing some changes to the language of the text but still falling short on Tamil demands for an international accountability mechanism. 

Sri Lankan soldiers took over the role of the medical staff who were conducting a nation-wide strike in late February, as militarisation of the North-East intensifies. 

The US House Foreign Affairs Committee called on Washington to “reassert its leadership role on human rights and support calls for justice in Sri Lanka,” as the United Nations Human Rights Council continues to discuss a new resolution on accountability for mass atrocities.

The daughter of murdered Sri Lankan journalist Lasantha Wickrematunge said that “Rajapaksa’s election has closed every door to human rights and accountability in Sri Lanka” in a piece for the Washington Post this week, as she called for the international community to ensure “murderous autocrats pay a price”.

“I hold Rajapaksa responsible,” wrote Ahimsa Wickrematunge.

Leeladevi Anandanadarajah, the secretary of the North-East Relatives of the Missing Persons Association, adressed the United Nation Human Rights Council this week, as she criticised praise of Sri Lanka’s domestic mechanisms, particularly the Office for Missing Persons (OMP), calling instead for a referral to the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Tamil families of the disappeared held a rally in Kilinochchi this week, calling on the international community to place sanctions on Sri Lankan officials accused of mass atrocities and for the state to be referred to the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Protestors demonstrated on the roadside in the city, with banners calling for Magnitsky sanctions to be placed on Sri Lankan officials accused of rights abuses and for an ICC referral.

A hunger strike has been launched in Batticaloa, in solidarity with a British Tamil woman who is protesting in London, as calls for Sri Lanka to be referred to the International Criminal Court continue to ramp up.

Students at Jaffna University echoed demands for Sri Lankan to be referred to the International Criminal Court, as a rotating hunger strike being carried out by students entered its fifth day.

Gareth Thomas, MP for Harrow West called on the UK government to "play a much bigger role" in holding Sri Lanka accountable for the human rights abuses they committed at the end of the armed conflict in 2009. 

Writing in Just Security, Dharsha Jegatheeswaran, Co-Director of the Adayaalam Centre for Policy Research, a human rights think-tank based in Jaffna, illustrates how the “Tamil families of the disappeared have shown, there is no hope for truth and justice domestically in Sri Lanka”.

“The only way to provide these families their long-overdue answers and justice to all victims in Sri Lanka is to break the seal around the military through international accountability”, she maintains.

Two people have been admitted to the Vavuniya hospital after being shot by the Sri Lankan Army in Omanthai. The incident took place at around 4am on Wednesday.