The Mullaitivu Magistrate Court issued an order on Thursday, prohibiting all types of commemorative activities in the Mullivaikkal area due to concerns related to the rise in COVID-19 cases in Sri Lanka.

The Mullaitivu Police obtained this order from the Court by filing a case against five specific individuals including former Northern Provincial Council member Thurairasa Ravikaran, head of the organisation of the families of disappeared M.Eswari and Ilankai Tamil Arasu Katchi (ITAK) Youth Wing leader Peter Illancheliyan.  

The order will remain in effect starting on May 16 through to May 22. This development follows intense efforts by the police and army to obstruct the commemoration of the Tamil Genocide Day on May 18. 

A day before the Mullaitivu Magistrate Court passed this order, Sri Lanka's security forces vandalised the Mullivaikkal memorial monument in the district and also stole a memorial stone that had been planned to be unveiled on May 18. The court order comes just as Tamil political representatives expressed their condemnations of the destruction of the monument. 

The court’s prohibition order accords with similar acts of the Sri Lankan state in the recent past in which it used COVID-19 as a pretext to deprive the Tamils of their right to memorialisation. Similar orders were also issued last year, in an attempt to prevent the commemoration of Maaveerar Naal.