Sri Lanka’s arrest of Tamil parliamentarian Vijayakala Maheswaran, following her remarks on the LTTE, is a “flagrant abuse of the rights to freedom of expression,” write human rights lawyers Samir Pasha and Naga Kandiah in The Interpreter this month.

“Any citizen has a right to dissent against government actions and raise issues affecting communities,” they wrote. “There is an unarguable difference between this and making a call to violent uprising, promoting hatred or hostility… The government’s claim in protecting the public can only be exercised in criminal proceedings where absolutely necessary. In Maheswaran’s case, this distinction was not made.”

The former captain of Sri Lanka’s cricket team announced that he had joined Mahinda Rajapaksa’s Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna party this morning.

Tillakaratne Dilshan took up party membership this morning, amidst Sri Lanka’s political turmoil which has seen Rajapaksa attempt to gain the office of prime minister.

Dilshan has previously praised Sri Lanka’s president, Maithripala Sirisena for the attempted move to implement the death penalty for drug traffickers.

In 2011, Mel Gunasekera wrote for AFP:

Families and loved ones of the disappeared held a demonstration today in Jaffna, calling on the US and EU to urge action over Sri Lanka's genocide of Tamil people. 

Families across the North-East have been protesting for over one year and expressed their disappointment and anger at the coalition government's failure to act. 

33 years later, families of the victims recalled how 13 young Tamil men were rounded up and made to walk with their ID cards in the air. STF troops shot them in the neck or head, except the youngest, Maju, who they shot in the chest.

On September 6, the U.S. Congressional Caucus on Ethnic and Religious Freedom in Sri Lanka hosted a briefing on security sector reform in Sri Lanka.

The co-chairs of the Caucus, Representatives Bill Johnson (Republican – Ohio) and Danny Davis (Democrat – Illinois), gave opening remarks about the need to pressure the Sirisena government to implement security sector reforms.

Representative Johnson noted that “essential reforms to Sri Lanka’s security sector are still badly needed,” citing the need for the Sirisena government to repeal the Prevention of Terrorism Act. He also echoed the finding of a UN expert that “the use of torture is deeply ingrained in the security sector in Sri Lanka.”

<p>Japan's foreign affairs ministry said today that it was paying close attention to developments and hoped that stability in Sri Lanka would continue to be ensured.&nbsp;</p> <p>"Japan, as a longtime friend of Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is following with close attention and interest the recent developments in Sri Lanka, including the dissolution of the parliament."</p> <p>"Japan hopes that the stability in Sri Lanka will continue to be ensured through due process in accordance with the law."</p>

A vigil was held today to remember the Indian Peacekeeping Force’s (IPKF) massacre of 14 Tamils in Batticaloa district 31 years ago.

After being targeted by a landmine on November 5, 1987, IPKF soldiers fired indiscriminately at Tamil civilians in Kaluvanchikudi, killing 14.

<p>A Sri Lankan army officer has been arrested by the police over the abduction of a Tamil youth in Kilinochchi last week.&nbsp;</p> <p>The family of the youth said he was abducted from his home in Ponnagar, Kilinochchi by unknown people on the day of Deepavali and taken to Polonnaruwa where his captors demanded Rs 5 lakhs in ransom for his release.&nbsp;</p> <p>The officer, who has not been named, is understood to have been station at the Thirumurikandi army camp.</p> <p>His arrest follows the previous arrest of two men from Polonnaruwa over their involvement in the abduction. A vehicle has also been confiscated.&nbsp;</p>

Over 16,600 families have been affected by heavy rains and subsequent flood this month in Batticaloa, with 242 families displaced. 

Students from the Vanthaarumoolai campus of the University of Batticaloa have launched makeshift teaching lessons for children living in camps with their parents, displaced by flooding. 

<p>International lawyers from the Sri Lanka Monitoring and Accountability Panel called for an independent evidence gathering mechanism in the country, in an op-ed published in Justiceinfo.com&nbsp;</p> <p>"Steps should include setting up an independent evidence-gathering mechanism related to atrocities for Sri Lanka with a similar mandate to those on Syria and Myanmar to investigate international crimes; and urging prosecutors in third states to pursue cases against Sri Lankan war criminals under the doctrine of universal jurisdiction," co-authors and lawyers Andrew Ianuzzi, Richard Rogers and Heather Ryan wrote.&nbsp;</p>