Today marks 51 years since the death of Ponnuthurai Sivakumaran, the first Tamil to die in the liberation struggle. 

Sivakumaran was a member of the Tamil Manavar Peravai (or Tamil Student Federation, TSF) and a leading militant in the early armed Tamil struggle. With decades of Sri Lankan state repression and deadly anti-Tamil pogroms already having taken place, Tamil militant movements began to form. Sivakumaran was involved in assassination attempts on both Somaweera Chandrasiri and Alfred Duraiappah.

Students at the University of Jaffna held a protest on Tuesday, demanding the immediate and unconditional release of two Tamil farmers from Mullaitivu who have been arrested whilst farming their own land, following a complaint by a Sinhala Buddhist monk.

The ITAK and TNPF held a key meeting in Kokkuvil, Jaffna today to discuss the formation of local government administrations

On 21 May 2025, The Jerusalem Post published an interview with Israeli security expert Moshe Elad. He claimed that Sri Lanka’s military defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in 2009 offers a model for eliminating Hamas. “Sri Lanka did it without a Supreme Court or B’Tselem,” he said. The subtext was clear: Israel should replicate the same path, minus legal oversight, to achieve total victory.

Vanni District Member of Parliament, Thurairasa Ravikaran, has accused key Sri Lankan state institutions of unlawfully seizing ancestral Tamil lands in the North-East and obstructing efforts to return them, despite repeated appeals from local communities and elected representatives.

Residents of Kuchchaveli in Trincomalee staged a protest today, condemning the Sri Lankan Navy’s shooting of a young Tamil fisherman during a naval operation off the north-eastern coast.

A 23-year-old Tamil fisherman from Jayanagar, Kuchchaveli was critically injured after the Sri Lankan Navy opened fire off the coast of Trincomalee on Tuesday, 3 June.

The fisherman has since been admitted to the Intensive Care Unit at Trincomalee General Hospital.

Tamil families of the disappeared have requested the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk to meet with them and visit Mullivaikkal during his visit to Sri Lanka later this month. 

The genocide unfolding in Gaza today has shocked the world, but it should not come as a surprise. It follows a now-familiar playbook.

Following the conclusion of the China-Sri Lanka Joint Trade and Economic Commission in Colombo, the states have signed two Memorandums of Understanding which deepen economic and trade cooperation.