The former head of Sri Lanka’s army has been inducted into the US Army Command and General Staff College’s “International Hall of Fame” this week, an appointment that has led to widespread outcry from Tamil victims around the world. Mahesh Senanayake, who has had a long Sri Lankan military career and once ran for president, was awarded in a ceremony held in the US this week.
More than a decade since the end of the armed conflict, the Sri Lankan military has raised a deadly new unit in Kilinochchi, the heart of the Tamil homeland, reportedly to “eliminate the internal and external threats”. A flashy new video from the newly raised 1 Corps states that the new unit "is the highest tactical organization” in the Sri Lankan army, with a range of units including the war crimes accused 58 and 53 Divisions.
Sri Lanka’s finance minister presented the 2022 budget in Parliament today with a bombastic speech that praised the ruling regime and continued with the government's increased focus on military spending and 'national security'. Basil Rajapaksa, a brother of both president Gotabaya Rajapaksa and prime minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, was full of praise for his siblings. “There are three main responsibilities that any elected government must fulfill in any country in the world,” he said. “They are, national security, development, and social welfare. President Mahinda Rajapaksha is the only leader...
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has called for an end to Instagram’s censorship of the Tamil Guardian and for Facebook to be “more transparent”, after the news website had its account disabled last month. “The London-based English-language website is one of the main sources of news about the Tamil community in Sri Lanka and the rest of the world and has more than 19,000 followers on Instagram, and yet it was censored in the most brutal manner, with no prior warning and no explanation,” said RSF in a statement released this morning. It went on to detail how despite the Tamil Guardian’s efforts...
Former UN Special Rapporteur on human rights and secretary-general of the Global Campus of Human Rights, Professor Manfred Nowark, has urged Holyrood to launch an inquiry into allegations of Sri Lankan police brutality against Tamil refugees who fled the island for Scotland. Nowark has maintained that if the refugees’ claims are established Police Scotland must end its controversial training of Sri Lankan police. He further urged for criminal investigation noting that torture techniques he exposed for the UN in 2007 are allegedly still being used. “The use of practices such as hanging victims...
Hundreds of British Tamils gathered in Glasgow today, where world leaders were attending the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP26, to protest against the presence of Sri Lanka's president and accused war criminal Gotabaya Rajapaksa. “Go back Gotabaya!” chanted the protestors, as they lined the south side of the River Clyde directly across the from COP26 conference venue, waving Tamil Eelam flags and holding placards denouncing the Sri Lankan president.
As the sun rose over the DoubleTree Hilton hotel in Dunblane this morning, Sri Lanka’s war crimes accused president was in for a surprise awakening as dozens of protestors gathered outside, calling for his arrest over his role in war crimes and genocide. The president, former defence secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa, was visiting Scotland for the UN COP26 climate summit that is currently underway and is scheduled to deliver an address later today.
Projections across Scotland, including on the Scottish Parliament Building in Edinburgh, called for international accountability for the Tamil genocide in Sri Lanka ahead of the island’s president Gotabaya Rajapaksa visiting the country next week. “Wanted for Genocide, President of Sri Lanka,” warned the projections which were placed in several locations across Scotland.
In December 2020, Twitter notified the editors of the Tamil Guardian that Sri Lanka’s Criminal Investigations Department had formally written to the social media platform, calling for posts by the news website to be removed. “In the interest of transparency, we are writing to inform you that Twitter has received a request from Sri Lanka's Criminal Investigation Department,” reads an email from Twitter sent on Monday, December 7 th 2020.
A landmark legal submission has been filed with the International Criminal Court (ICC) calling on the Chief Prosecutor to “investigate and in due course arrest” several senior Sri Lankan officials for crimes against humanity. The submission, filed by Global Rights Compliance LLP on behalf of 200 Tamil victims in the United Kingdom, is being made under Article 15 of the Rome Statute, which allows the prosecutor to initiate investigations “on the basis of information on crimes within the jurisdiction of the Court”.