Sri Lankan presidential aspirant Namal Rajapaksa, son of accused war criminal Mahinda Rajapaksa, firmly stated that there would be no merger of the North and East, nor would land or police powers be granted under a Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) government.

Sri Lankan police have arrested Tamil National People’s Front (TNPF) MP Selvarajah Kajendren as he and his team campaigned for a boycott of the upcoming Sri Lankan presidential elections in Kilinochchi this morning.

Kajendren and other members of the TNPF have repeatedly been harassed by the Sri Lankan security forces in recent weeks.

A new report by the Oakland Institute looking at Trincomalee, a city once dubbed the capital of Tamil Eelam, has found that over the last 12 months, there has been rapidly escalating colonization of the Tamil homeland.

Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) MP Tissa Kuttiarachchi claimed there is a conspiracy to assassinate former president Mahinda Rajapaksa and that threats form the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) were still present despite their defeat in 2009, as this months polls draw closer.

International journalists attempting to travel to Sri Lanka and cover the upcoming presidential elections have faced visa delays or even outright refusals in recent weeks, as tension continues to build on the island ahead of the polls.

The People for Equality and Relief in Lanka (PEARL) released a new legal briefing paper this week that states out and proves that the Sri Lankan government and military committed genocide against the Tamil people in 2009.

Sri Lankan police in Puthukkudiyiruppu, Mullaitivu, blocked Tamil National People’s Front (TNPF) MP Selvarajah Kajendren as he and his team campaigned for a boycott of the upcoming Sri Lankan presidential elections. 

This marks the third time in less than three weeks that the Sri Lankan police have made a concentrated effort to block the TNPF from campaigning in the North-East.

Relatives and civil society activists have called on the Sri Lankan government to release Tamil political prisoners, some of whom have been held long after completing their sentences. They claim that the continued detention in squalid conditions is a deliberate act by Sri Lankan authorities to suppress Tamils and deny them the right to live in dignity.

The British government continues to deem Sri Lanka a “human rights priority country” said Catherine West, the UK’s Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Indo-Pacific, as she was questioned on the need to impose Magnitsky-style sanctions on Sri Lankan officials accused of war crimes.