Students at the University of Jaffna marked the birthday of LTTE leader Veluppillai Prabhakaran in secret at midnight.
Britain’s former prime minister David Cameron described how he refused to shake Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s hand when he met the Rajapaksa brothers in a “showdown” in Colombo in 2013, that was described as one of “the worst tempered foreign meeting(s)” during his tenure. Cameron, who was in Colombo for the 2013 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM), justified his attendance at the meeting, stating, “What would be a more effective challenge to Rajapaksa and his denial of war crimes: staying away and saying nothing, or going there and holding him to account?” He went on to speak of how this...
As Sri Lanka’s new president Gotabaya Rajapaksa takes up office, we look back on a brief selection of interviews he gave to international media outlets during his tenure as secretary of defence.
Updated 1145 GMT Ranil Wickremesinghe has announced that he will resign from his role as Sri Lanka's prime minister and will be informing the new president of his decision tomorrow.
A group of unidentified Sinhalese men attacked Tamils in Kegalle earlier today, as violence broke out in the aftermath of Sri Lanka’s presidential election this weekend.
The Sri Lankan presidential elections were watched closely by journalists and human rights observers around the world, with much being written and broadcast during the campaign period, and much more expected in the aftermath of the result. The Telegraph today captured the fear which rippled through the Tamil North-East, which voted overwhelmingly against Rajapaksa, with record numbers coming out to deliver over 80% of the vote to Sajith Premadasa. Qadijah Irshad speaking to Tamils in the North writes: As Mr Rajapaksa prepared to be sworn in as the island’s new president on Monday in the...
Tens of thousands of Tamil voters have cast their ballots early across the North-East amidst a ramped-up security presence and heightened tensions, as Sri Lanka’s presidential elections were underway on Saturday. Tamil voters have reportedly begun stocking up on supplies and groceries, amidst fears of violence in the wake of a close election between the two leading candidates Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Sajith Premadasa.
Sri Lanka’s white van squads abducted, tortured and murdered victims before feeding their bodies to crocodiles, admitted a man who was supposedly a driver for the squads under the previous government. In a dramatic press conference in Colombo on Sunday, Anthony Fernando was introduced by Sri Lanka’s health minister as white van driver who had personally witnessed kidnappings and torture.
Pressure from the Sri Lankan military has led to the University of Jaffna barring the head of its law department from engaging in private practice, after he took up a public interest habeas corpus case into the 1996 disappearance of more than two dozen Tamil youth. On August 21, 2019, the military sent a letter to the University Grants Commission (UGC) asking whether Kumaravadivel Guruparan, Senior Lecturer and Head of the Department of Law at Jaffna University, had permission to engage in private practise. Acting swiftly, the UGC that very same day forwarded the letter to Jaffna University...
Outrage has erupted over social media after images of recently issued stamps in Sri Lanka with a racist depiction of Tamils surfaced.