File photograph: Protest in Mannar calling for an end to forced cremations

Sri Lanka's Director General of Health Services, Asela Gunawardana, said that "it will take some time" to end the island's forced cremation policy. 

Former Vanni MP and Attorney-at-Law Hunais Farook submitted a statement to Mannar Police over his participation in the Pottuvil to Polikandy (P2P) protest march.

Writing in The Diplomat this week, Tamil Guardian features editor Thusiyan Nandakumar said the February coup in Myanmar “should serve as a wake-up call when it comes to Sri Lanka”.

A hunger strike urging the Sri Lankan government to be brought before the International Criminal Court (ICC) commenced in Nallur, Jaffna today morning.  

Ambihai K Selvakumar, a director of the International Centre for the Prevention of Genocide (ICPPG) is in the second day of her hunger strike, as she continues her demand that the UK refer Sri Lanka to the International Criminal Court.

Jaffna fishermen have expressed their concerns against the Sri Lankan government’s move to permit Chinese firms to establish a renewable energy system in three islands located off the Jaffna peninsula. 

The Sri Lankan Terrorism Investigation Department (TID) summoned the secretary of the North-East Relatives of the Missing Persons Association for interrogation, just days after questioning the Vavuniya Families of the Disappeared Association secretary and president.

Families of the disappeared (FOD) across the North-East marked 4 years of continuous roadside protests this week.

For 4 years the FOD’s demands of the whereabouts of their family members, the majority of whom had been handed over to the Sri Lankan Army at the end of the armed conflict in May 2009, continues to be ignored by the Sri Lankan government.

Speaking at an awareness protest marking 4 years of protest, Jeyavanitha Kaasipillai, head of the FOD in Vavuniya stated

The official Sri Lankan state celebration of Vesak will be held in Jaffna this year, following instructions from Prime Minister, and accused war criminal Mahinda Rajapaksa to “focus on the North and East during Vesak this year”.

Whilst accusing the UNHRC of being bias towards the state, Sri Lanka’s Defence Secretary Kamal Gunaratne has denied allegations that he and the Sri Lankan armed forces committed war crimes during the armed struggle against the LTTE which ended in May 2009. 

“We are not war criminals”, said Gunaratne in an interview conducted by Ceylon Today. Addressing the interviewer, he claimed to have served his “country and its people and even you are walking freely today because I spent my entire youth in the jungle fighting the terrorists”.