Today we meet at a critical conjuncture when efforts are being made to water down the Tamils’ demand for political rights and a political solution to the toothless provincial council system created by the 13th amendment to the Sri Lankan constitution.

When we speak of a political solution, many of us fail to understand that it should be a means of preventing genocide.

The first and most important thing to understand about the Sri Lankan flag is that every version of the lion flag is, definitionally, racist and fascist in symbolism, including the official one. It was intentionally designed that way, by committee.

Writing in The Morning, Ambika Satkunanathan, former Human Rights Commissioner of Sri Lankan (HRCSL), explains how most of the recently announced proposed 'reforms' to the notorious Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) "already exist and are not new."

Over the last decade, Australia has gone to disturbing lengths to ensure asylum seekers do not seek refuge in their country; most of which have been slammed around the world as inhumane. Chief amongst the dozens of critiques that Australian authorities have come under are the conditions in which asylum seekers are held in.

Last week several refugee supporters, including myself, were arrested after dropping a banner off the rooftop of the Park Hotel in Naarm/Melbourne in protest of the plight of approximately 30 refugees who had been imprisoned onshore.

People are starving in Sri Lanka. The economy is in freefall as the cash-strapped government struggles to pay off its debts. The country has been forced to sell over half of its gold reserves and the prices of basic foods have skyrocketed. The pandemic has undeniably devastated Sri Lanka, but this is a crisis of the government’s own making. Instead of pursuing a “people-centric economy”, Sri Lanka’s insular policies have been military-driven, unaccountable, and detached from the struggle of citizens.

Writing in the International Crisis Group (ICG), senior consultant Alan Keenan slams Sri Lanka's "One Country, One Law" Presidential Taskforce as a means by which the Rajapaksa can "divert discontent among the government’s Sinhala Buddhist base toward an embattled minority".

Writing in the Guardian, Tamil human rights lawyer at MTC Solicitors, Naga Kandiah, slammed the British government’s proposed Clause 9 to the nationality and borders bill which could see dual nationals stripped of their citizenship without notice.

The New Statement’s research, based on the 2011 census, reveals that as many as 5.6 million people living in England and Wales could be affected by the rule change.

Ambika Satkunanathan, Former Commissioner at the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka, addressed the United States House of Representatives Tom Lantos Commission on Human Rights this week, as it held a hearing on 'Accountability and Human Rights in Sri Lanka'.

See the full text of her address and video footage of the event below.

Sondra Anton, student attorney at the International Human Rights Clinic at Harvard Law School, addressed the United States House of Representatives Tom Lantos Commission on Human Rights yesterday, as it held a hearing on 'Accountability and Human Rights in Sri Lanka'.

See the full text of her address and video footage of the event below.