The Sri Lankan military declared open a new village, exclusively run by the army, in the Tamil heartland of Kilinochchi last week.

<p>Seven Tamil Nadu fishermen were arrested by Sri Lankan naval personnel on Sunday for allegedly fishing in the island's territorial waters.&nbsp;</p> <p>The fishermen claimed that the strong winds and rough seas caused them to cross&nbsp;the International Maritime Boundary Line.</p> <p>They were charged for poaching in Sri Lanka's territory, their boat was seized and they were arrested.&nbsp;</p>

<p>Kurunegala Magistrate’s Court has granted bail to a Muslim doctor, Mohamed Shafi, who was falsely accused of having sterilised over 4,000 Sinhala women.</p> <p>Safi was given bail of 2.5 million rupees after a five-hour court hearing.&nbsp;</p> <p>His defence lawyer, Faris Saly, that when he was initially arrested in May, the judge found “no reason to refuse bail”.</p>

The Tamil Academic Journal has launched its first conference focusing on “Tamil Resistance in the 21st Century” at Kingston University on July 6. 

The Sri Lankan government has expressed its unhappiness with the amount of India aid money it has been allocated and requested a larger amount, reports India Today.

Though Indian aid to Sri Lanka has increased from Rs 150 crores last year to Rs 250 crore, it still lags behind other coutnries such as the Maldives who have been allocated Rs 576 crore and Mauritius who will be receiving Rs 1,100 crores.

Muslims in Sri Lanka have continued to face racist harassment, with reports that a pig’s head was hung in front of a Muslim store - the latest in a string of incidents to hit the community since the Easter Sunday attacks earlier this year.

"Sinhala Buddhist hegemonic majoritarianism that prevails in Sri Lanka is very dangerous," said rights campaigner Nuwan Athukorala.

Boris Johnson has been appointed as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, with a new cabinet that includes many politicians that have spoken out in support of British Tamils.

We examine key figures in the new cabinet and their previous statements on the British Tamil community, justice for mass atrocities and the enduring ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka.

Sri Lankan authorities apply laws in discriminatory ways, with Tamil protests and gatherings in the North-East disproportionately facing crackdowns, the UN Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and association said last week.

The special rapporteur Clément Nyaletsossi Voulé said in his closing statement of his official trip to the island that although Sri Lanka had a comprehensive legal framework governing the right to freedom of peaceful assembly, this was “scattered in different sets of laws and regulations which seem to be interchangeably enforced”.

A special service was held in Batticaloa last week, to mark three months since the Easter Sunday attacks that claimed hundreds of lives.

A disappearances activist who had been searching for her son for over eleven years died on Wednesday.

Sebamalai Theresambal died of cardiac arrest. Her son Sebamalai Selvan was taken by the Sri Lankan navy on July 1, 2008 and never returned.

<p>Visiting UN Special Rapporteur, Clément Nyalestsossi Voule met with the Chief Justice and High court judges despite assurance from the Speaker earlier this week to block the scheduled meeting.</p> <p>Speaker of Parliament, Karu Jayasuriya, said there had been a meeting between the UN Special Rapporteur and the Chief Justice but noted that it was a courtesy call in the company of foreign ministry officials.</p>

Sri Lankan soldiers have organised yet another music show in Jaffna, as thousands of troops remain stationed in the Northern city despite calls for demilitarisation.

The Sri Lankan government announced that Viraj Mendis, the Sinhalese chairperson of the International Human Rights Association – Bremen (IMRV), has been added to their list of known “terrorists” in an updated gazette notification that has been slammed as a "escalation in political repression".

The Sri Lanka Freedom Party’s (SLFP) former General Secretary Rohana Lakshman Piyadasa lashed out at the Tamil diaspora for “undermining Sri Lanka” and criticised the United National Party (UNP) for allowing the 1983 Black July pogrom to take place and giving Sri Lanka “a bad name”.

“It was a pogrom against Tamils by a few Sinhalese aided and abetted by the J.R. Jayawardene regime,” claimed current secretary Dayasiri Jayasekera at a press conference on Wednesday.