UN Resident Coordinator in Sri Lanka, Hanaa Singer, and UN Regional Director, David McLachlan-Karr met with the Tamil Families of the Disappeared, civil society organisations and held a separate meeting with Sri Lanka’s President, Ranil Wickremesinghe, and Prime Minister Dinesh Gunawardene.

As the EU stressed in conversations with Sri Lanka’s president the need for concrete steps on human rights, Britain’s High Commissioner to Sri Lanka announced that UK’s new Developing Countries Trading Scheme (DCTS) will bolster Sri Lanka’s economy without commenting on the country’s dire human rights record.

Amidst international outcry over Sri Lanka’s crackdown on peaceful demonstrators, Sri Lanka’s President Ranil Wickremesinghe has issued an extraordinary gazette summoning the tri-forces to maintain public order across the island with effect from August 22.

This comes despite the president not extending the state of emergency claiming that normalcy has returned to the country.

Writing in The Diplomat, Viruben Nandakumar stresses the need for Indian diplomats to end a policy of appeasement and soberly reflect on the currents of Sinhala Buddhist nationalism, which prohibit further integration between India and Sri Lanka.

In his inaugural speech, Sri Lanka’s current President Ranil Wickremesinghe signalled a shift in foreign policy to favour relations with India by praising their aid efforts and lamented on cancelled investment projects. Indian investment projects were abandoned for “baseless reasons”, claimed Sri Lanka’s president.

Sri Lanka’s immigration authorities are reportedly on the hunt for British national Kayleigh Fraser, after they seized her passport following her social media posts covering the “Go Home Gota” protests.

“Her visa was cancelled on August 15, so we are looking to put her in a detention camp until she can get a ticket to leave the country,” a Sri Lankan immigration official told EconomyNext. They claimed that Fraser was not getting deported but that instead her visa was cancelled.

After a break of three years, thousands of people travelled to Mannar to attend the annual festival to mark Feast of Our Lady of Madhu this week.

The festival, which was delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic, usually attracts large crowds of devotees every year.

On Monday, thousands were in attendance for the service, with the statue of Our Lady of Madhu brought out for all to see.

Local Tamils in Mannar celebrated the famed Tamil poet and philosopher Thiruvalluvar this week, in a festival organised by the Mannar District Art and Culture Council and District Secretariat.

Sri Lankan security forces fired teargas and water cannons once more in Colombo, as they arrested at least 20 activists on Thursday.

Hundreds of university students were demonstrating in Colombo at a rally organised by the Inter-University Student Federation (IUSF), as police with riot shields and batons pushed back protestors.

IUSF leader Wasantha Mudalige was amongst at least 20 activists taken into custody, according to Journalists for Democracy Sri Lanka.

The party of the former Sri Lankan president has sought assurances from the government to pave the way for his return to the island, officially submitting a request for “the necessary security and facilities” required.

Sagara Kariyawasam, general secretary of the ruling Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP), told reporters that the party had officially sought the assistance of the current Sri Lankan government.

Methagu opened to both praise and controversy when it premiered last year, an inevitable situation due to the complex leader it depicts. The first film shows Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) leader Velupillai Prabhakaran in his youth and the political state of the nation, as well as the oppression faced by the Tamils at the hand of the Sinhalese. We watch as an angry young boy decides to act boldly, rather than stand by and watch the genocide of his people.

Methagu 2 is a sequel, continuing a few years from where the first film concluded.