Switzerland deported at least two Eelam Tamil families to Sri Lanka last month, with at least one person injured during the deportation as officers beat a man, according to the Migrant Solidarity Network.

“I cannot believe and accept it,” said one of the deported Tamils, who called the actions of Switzerland’s State Secretariat for Migration “totally inhuman”.

One of the Tamils deported was reportedly picked up unannounced by the police from the asylum camp in Enggistein, taken to Zurich airport and put on a flight to Sri Lanka.

After touring the island and presenting copies of a newly signed declaration with Sinhala Buddhist clergy, the Global Tamil Forum (GTF) made a stop on their circuit to take photographs alongside accused war criminal Mahinda Rajapaksa.

A landmark resolution has been brought by a group of US senators and representatives from across both parties this week, urging Sri Lanka to demilitarise the North-East, repeal the Prevention of Terrorism Act, halt land grabs and remove war criminals from positions of authority.

Today marks 17 years since the passing of the chief negotiator and political strategist of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), Anton Balasingham. 

He remains an extraordinary theoretician and a formidable figure within the Tamil struggle.

Sri Lanka’s Terrorism Investigation Division (TID) interrogated a former Jaffna university student for more than 3 hours, over the choice of songs that were played during a commemoration ceremony at the campus in May 2022.

Rasarathnam Dharshan, the former president of the Jaffna University Arts Students' Union and a journalist with the Uthayan, was questioned on Monday over a commemoration ceremony that was held to mark Tamil Genocide Remembrance Day in May 2022.

The Royal National Theatre, a landmark London venue, has appointed British Tamil Indhu Rubasingham as its artistic director – making her the first female to hold the post in its 60-year history.

“It’s a huge honour to be appointed Director of the National Theatre,” said Rubasingham. “For me, this is the best job in the world.”

The ‘Himalaya Declaration’, a supposed path forward for the island that had the blessings of the Sri Lankan state, contained little substance. Instead, it sought to give a regime that is facing increasing global pressure a cheap veneer of progress, obfuscating more than 15 years of calls for international accountability and whitewashing decades of struggle for self-determination. Those who champion justice for the Tamil genocide will be rightly outraged.

An event commemorating the 40-year-old history of the Tamil diaspora in Switzerland took place in Bern last week, marking their journey to the country, as well as the growth and challenges they faced since arrival.

The first Tamil refugees arrived in Switzerland 40 years ago, escaping the horrors of the anti-Tamil Black July pogroms and the escalation of armed conflict in Sri Lanka. With an estimated 60,000 members, Eelam Tamils are one of the largest diaspora groups in Switzerland today.

In a heated parliamentary debate on human rights in Sri Lanka, British Minister of State for the Foreign Office, Anne-Marie Trevelyan, avoided commenting on the growing bi-partisan calls for sanctions on Sri Lankan officials.

Conservative MP, and Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Tamils, Elliot Colburn, raised this question directly as he asked the minister of state;

Sri Lanka’s Court of Appeal has acquitted two soldiers who were initially sentenced to death over the 1996 gang rape and murder of a Tamil woman in Jaffna.

The decision, made by the Court of Appeal last week, saw two defendants, soldier Hevapedike Sarathchandra and Corporal Gamage Kitsiri, acquitted of all charges.

A third soldier Corporal Gamini Saman Liyenake has been ordered to have a retrial.

23-year-old Rajini Velauthapillai, from Urumpirai, was raped and murdered by the Sri Lankan military manning a checkpoint at Kondavil on September 30, 1996.