The Jaffna Teaching Hospital held a commemoration service in remembrance of the 68 staff and patients who were massacred by the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) 31 years ago.
Sri Lanka's president sat next to a controversial admiral accused of involvement in covering up the abduction and murder of Tamil youths, whilst speaking at a public event in the south this week.
Chief of Defence Staff Admiral Ravindra Wijegunaratne was seen on stage next to Maithripala Sirisena in Colombo. Wijegunaratne is wanted for questioning by the CID, for allegedly assisting the main suspect accused of heading the abduction and murder of Tamil youths.
A Sri Lankan minister has requested the UK government to take further action against Tamil activists that were arrested by British police earlier this month.
Sri Lankan minister Champika Ranawaka, a leader of the hard-line Sinhala-Buddhist JHU party, met with the FCO Minister for Asia and the Pacific, Mark Field, during his visit to London last week.
Sri Lanka's former foreign minister has said that the UN's repatriation of an army commander was down to the current government's inability to handle foreign relations, and warned that the repatriation could have serious repercussions for the entire Sri Lankan Army.
Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court has taken up seven petitions challenging the constitutionality of the draft Counter Terrorism Act (CTA), the proposed replacement for the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA).
The international organisation Human Rights Watch (HRW) has also made submissions to the Sri Lankan parliament outlining how the proposed reforms to Sri Lanka’s counter terrorism legislation fall short of complying with international human rights standards.
The Sri Lankan president has attacked his coalition partner the United National Party, claiming he was misled about the integrity of the party.
“When I collaborated with UNP as common candidate I thought I was joining [D S Senanayake/Dudley Senanayake’s] UNP," President Sirisena said according to a tweet by BBC journalist Azzam Ameen.
India’s Prime Minister has expressed concern over delays to the country’s development projects in Sri Lanka, a press release from the Sri Lankan Prime Minister’s office said.
Sri Lanka must not be allowed to keep on using UN peacekeeping to escape accountability for the crimes of its armed forces, the International Truth and Justice Project (ITJP) has said in its statement welcoming the repatriation of a Sri Lankan army commander from a UN mission.
Two Tamil university students shot and killed by Sri Lankan police two years ago were remembered by their peers at the University of Jaffna on Saturday.
<p>The United States’ “failure to push Sri Lanka to implement key institutional reforms not only betrayed the victims of past abuses, but it will also create new ones”, writes Kate Cronin-Furman in a piece for Foreign Policy this week.</p>
<p>Sri Lanka’s purported new government will end accountability for war crimes and enforced disappearances by the security forces, newly appointed Foreign Minister Sarath Amunugama said.</p>
Sri Lanka’s security forces have demanded alternative land and financing for relocation in order for civilian land in the North to be released from occupation.
The United Nations has asked Sri Lanka to immediately repatriate the commander of it’s peacekeeping contingent in Mali, following a review of his human rights background, AP reports.
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