Following a crackdown on demonstrators in Colombo, Britain’s South Asia Minister, Lord Tariq Ahmad, has stated on Twitter that he has had a “constructive conversation” with Sri Lanka’s President which focused on the right to peaceful protest.

Responding to crack down on protesters by Sri Lanka’s military, JVP General Secretary Tilvin Silva claimed that the act of was an “act of revenge”.

The attack on demonstrators saw an estimated thousand soldiers confront protesters, numbering fewer than a hundred. Soldiers reportedly assaulted a soldier and destroyed camps where protesters were camping.

Marking the 39^th anniversary of Black July, an anti-Tamil pogrom that saw the slaughter of an estimated 30,000 Tamils, Canadian politicians have issued statements commemorating the tragedy.

Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stated:

Black July was horrific and violent – and the ensuing conflict was devastating. On this anniversary, we remember the Tamils whose lives were lost, those who were displaced, and those who suffered. My full statement: https://t.co/6LPKAZtE6R

Speaking with The Sunday Morning, Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Spokesperson MA Sumanthiran spoke out against the crackdown on protesters whilst defending the party’s support for Dullas Alahapperuma on the grounds of “political stability”.

As Tamils across the world and in the homeland commemorate the 39th anniversary of the anti-Tamil Black July pogrom, the Tamil Coordinating Committee and hundreds of Tamils in the United Kingdom protested for justice and paid tribute to the thousands of Tamil lives lost during the state-sponsored atrocities of 1983.  

Marking the 39^th anniversary of Black July, Jaffna University students held a memorial on campus to commemorate the thousands of Tamils killed.

Speaking at the memorial, one of the speakers stated:

Marking the 39^th anniversary of the anti-Tamil Black July pogrom, the Tamil National People’s Front (TNPF) held a candlelight vigil to remember the thousands of Tamils slain.

An estimated 3,000 Tamils were killed as Sinhala mobs, armed with electoral rolls, targeted Tamil homes and businesses for looting and ransacking.

In the 39 years since the pogroms of Black July, few images exist of the horrific violence that was unleashed on Tamils by Sinhala and Sri Lankan government backed mobs.

The photographs that do still survive are vivid.

Using the genealogy platform MyHeritage, we have enhanced and colourised some of the few photographs that have lasted. They offer a stunning new glimpse into the horrors of the pogrom.

Today marks thirty-nine years since the horrors of the anti-Tamil pogrom of 1983, when thousands of Tamils were killed by Sinhala mobs backed by the then-UNP government and state forces.

Following a brutal crackdown on demonstrators in Galle Face, Colombo, Sri Lanka’s President Ranil Wickremesinghe has sworn in a new cabinet comprised of those with troubled records.