Local Tamils have staged a protest at the funeral of a Tamil youth who was reportedly tortured to death by Sri Lankan police this week, demand justice for his killing.

Nagarasa Alex, a 25-year-old resident of Sithankerni, Jaffna, passed away on Sunday.

Students at the University of Jaffna gathered on campus today to mark the first day of  Maaveerar remembrance week. 

Sri Lanka’s Special Task Force (STF) has been deployed to ramp up security outside a police station in Jaffna after a Tamil youth was killed in custody on Sunday.

25-year-old Nagarasa Alex was declared dead just hours after he described on video how the Sri Lankan police were brutally torturing him. He had been detained by the Sri Lankan police in Vaddukkottai. The video has been widely shared, with anger brewing over the killing of another Tamil youth.

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A Tamil youth described on video how he was beaten and tortured by Sri Lankan police, just hours before he was killed.

25-year-old Nagarasa Alex, a resident of Sithankerni, Jaffna, revealed harrowing details of his torture, just hours before he was declared dead.

Trigger warning – graphic descriptions of violence.

In the video, Alex describes being waterboarded, having ropes tied to his elbows and hung, having his head covered with a bag filled with petrol, and forced to drink alcohol.

Sri Lankan police in Jaffna have filed petitions in courts, attempting to ban Maaveerar Naal commemorations due to take place next week.

Police based in Manipay, Jaffna filed a petition at the district court in Mallakam, Jaffna claiming that the date on which Eelam Tamils around the world honour those who died in the liberation struggle, was glorifying terrorism.

Nagarasa Alex, a 25-year-old resident of Sithankerni, Jaffna, has reportedly died due to alleged torture by Sri Lankan police. The incident has sparked outrage, with a video circulating on social media capturing the young man's harrowing account of the brutality he endured.

Alex, who was remanded by order of the Jaffna Mallakam Magistrate Court, passed away on Sunday.

The government of Sri Lanka has been elected to the Executive Board of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), despite its continued efforts to eradicate Tamil culture and embed Sinhala Buddhism in the North-East of the island.

Sri Lanka will now serve for the term 2023-2027, after securing 144 votes out of 188 member states in Paris last week.

A Sri Lankan lawmaker has admitted that the island is one of the most militarised places in the world, as the government continued to spend huge amounts on the defence sector despite an economic crisis.

“For every 100 citizens, we have 1.5 soldiers,” Eran Wickramaratne of the Samagi Jana Balavegaya (SJB) told Sri Lanka’s parliament. “We are among the top 10 countries with the highest number of soldiers per 100 civilians.”

The United States has agreed to lend US$553 million to build a new container terminal in the Sri Lankan capital Colombo’s port – a deal that that will see Washington work with India on the island as it grows ties across Asia.

More than $100,000 has been raised by the Tamil community in Canada to fight an appeal challenging a previous court's decision to uphold Bill 104, Ontario's Tamil Genocide Education Week (TGEW) Act.

A statement from the National Council of Canadian Tamils, Canadian Tamil Youth Alliance and Canadian Tamil Academy announced a total of $102,374 had been raised so far, as they sought to ward of a legal challenge to the act, which was passed in 2021.