^{File photo: Sri Lankan soldiers listen to an address by Shavendra Silva on cyber warfare}

Sri Lanka’s Terrorist Investigations Division (TID) arrested a Tamil youth in Wattala last week claiming that he had posted content about the LTTE on Tik Tok, which was being monitored by the authorities ‘cyber patrol unit’.

The 25-year-old Tamil youth, who was born in Mullaitivu and living in Hatton, has since been detained by counter terror police under the widely criticised Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA).

The Sri Lankan navy’s efforts to occupy private land in Karainagar, Jaffna was thwarted by the protests of Tamil locals and politicians, last Friday (19^th February).

Following the presentation of the damning report on Sri Lanka by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet’s damning on report on Sri Lanka, several NGO’s highlighted the prevailing impunity and lack of accountability for human rights violations in Sri Lanka and the failed domestic mechanisms; urging the council to take steps to refer Sri Lanka to the International Criminal Court (ICC) and impose sanctions on known perpetrators.

Lawyers’ Rights Watch Canada

Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian Selvam Adaikalanathan warned last week that Sri Lanka’s Minister of Public Security Sarath Weerasekara “is acting towards eliminating Tamil people in the North-East”, after the minister threatened to arrest Tamil protestors and said Tamil lawmakers should have been teargassed.

Sri Lanka has finally ended it's forced cremation policy but has proposed to introduce laws to ban wearing face veils in public, continuing the ongoing discrimination faced by Muslims on the island. 

_{File photo : Gopalakrishnan Rajkumar at a protest last year.} 

The Sri Lankan Terrorism Investigation Division (TID) summoned the secretary of the Vavuniya Families of the Disappeared Association for investigation on Monday.

Responding to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet’s, damning report on Sri Lanka, members of the Core Group (UK, Canada, Germany, Montenegro, and North Macedonia) expressed alarm over the deteriorating human rights conditions in Sri Lanka whilst Sri Lanka allies accuse the UNHRC of political bias.

Alongside the Core Group, the EU, Australia, and Switzerland alongside a number of other countries voiced concern over the worsening human rights situation in Sri Lanka. Russia, North Korea, Syria, Iran, Pakistan, and China, among others, alleged faith in Sri Lanka’s domestic mechanisms and accused the UN report baseless allegations.

Today marks the 16th anniversary of the assassination of Tamil politician Joseph Pararajasingham, who was shot dead by armed government paramilitary men in 2005.

Sri Lanka's Minister of Public Security Sarath Weerasekara criticised the UNHRC sessions and the institution itself as being a weapon used by the Tamil diaspora and the Western world to weaken Sri Lanka, in an interview conducted by the Daily Mirror this week. 

Pakistan's prime minister Imran Khan concluded a visit to Sri Lanka today, where he met with both Sri Lanka’s president and prime minister to “explore new avenues of enhancing bilateral trade and investment between the two countries”, and held a last minute meeting with Muslim lawmakers on the island.

However, the issue of Sri Lanka’s forcible cremation of Muslims – a topic that has generated international outrage and led to protests as Khan visited – was seemingly not discussed at all.