A series of mobile digital adverts were placed across the city of Glasgow earlier today, as part of a campaign by Scottish Tamils as Sri Lanka’s president Gotabaya Rajapaksa visits the city for the UN climate summit COP 26.

The adverts which were placed on vans that roamed the roads surrounding COP26 venues and Glasgow city, warned that Rajapaksa should not be welcomed in Scotland due to his overseeing of war crimes and genocide.

^{Photo Credit: thaarakam.net}

On Friday, 29 October 2021, protestors gathered in front of the British Embassy in Belgium, condemning Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa's visit to Glasglow, Scotland. 

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A Tamil man who survived torture by the Sri Lankan security forces before fleeing to Scotland earlier this year, has accused Police Scotland of backing a regime responsible for human rights violations in a piece published in the Sunday Post today.

The Tamil man, who had been studying in Edinburgh went to Sri Lanka after his father fell ill in August of this year. Whilst there, he says he was “grabbed from the street and put into a white van and taken away.

Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) has doubled down on a directive issued to players not to ‘take the knee’ in support of the Black Lives Matter, despite several other sports team routinely making the gesture including in the current T20 Cricket World Cup.

As a Scottish Tamil campaign for international justice ahead of Sri Lankan president Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s visit to Glasgow continues at full steam, a curious advert appeared in this weekend’s edition of The Herald.

“Fostering greater accountability, restorative justice, and meaningful reconciliation,” read one of the lines in the full page advert, which was headed with a photograph of the war crimes accused Rajapaksa.

Tamil politicians from the North-East joined British and Canadian parliamentarians in denouncing Instagram’s censoring of Tamil Guardian’s page. 

Tamil Guardian’s Instagram account, was briefly reinstated on Friday after it was disabled on Wednesday without any prior warning or explanation. 

However, just over 12 hours later, it was disabled again. 

Ahead of the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference, also known as COP26, an advert both in The Herald and the National, two Scottish papers, speaks out against Sri Lanka's attempt to conceal its record of genocide behind claims of "climate leadership and stewardship".

Sri Lankan president, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, has arrived in Scotland for the UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) in Glasgow, where he expected to be met by protests.

His arrival comes as Scottish Tamils are in the midst of a widespread publicity campaign calling for the President to be held accountable for numerous war crimes he is responsible for during his tenure as defence secretary.

Mohamed Sulthan, the coordinator of Save the Pearls, has told the Fort Magistrates Court that he was tortured in order to implicate the prominent Muslim human rights lawyer, Hejaaz Hizbullah. 

Sulthan's defence lawyer detailed the names of three Terrorist Investigation Department officers who he alleges undertook the torture. Sulthan was originally arrested under allegations of teaching "extremism" at a Madrasa school and has been detained for 18 months.

Responding to the appointment of former convict and extremist monk, Galagodaaththe Gnanasara, to head the Presidential Task Force on "One country, one law",  the All Ceylon Jamiyyathul Ulama (ACJU) expressed shock and dismay on behalf of the Muslim community in Sri Lanka.

In their statement, Ash Shaikh M. Arkam Nooramith the General Secretary for the ACJU maintained that Gnanasara's appointment "appointment tarnishes the reputation of our country in the international arena" and hampered "peace and harmony initiatives".