This morning Instagram disabled Tamil Guardian’s page without any prior warning or explanation, a move that amounts to a dangerous and unwarranted form of online censorship.

I don’t call myself Buddhist any more. There was a long time when I still automatically used it as an identifier in forms and affidavits, but even that has passed many years ago. But because Buddhism is racialized in Sri Lanka, it’s also impossible to entirely escape it: regardless of what you believe or don’t believe, practice or don’t, Buddhist privilege is inescapable if you have a Sinhala name or had a Buddhist childhood. For example, I know the ??????, which is a short prayer of praise for the Buddha, now most notable for its use as a shibboleth to distinguish Tamil speakers from Sinhala speakers during the 1983 pogrom. Once you know things like that, I feel, this prayer—and all the other Pali prayers—become unspeakable. They stop meaning what they say; they stop meaning what they might have once meant. Now they mean something else.

A landmark legal submission has been filed with the International Criminal Court (ICC) calling on the Chief Prosecutor to “investigate and in due course arrest” several senior Sri Lankan officials for crimes against humanity.

The submission, filed by Global Rights Compliance LLP on behalf of 200 Tamil victims in the United Kingdom, is being made under Article 15 of the Rome Statute, which allows the prosecutor to initiate investigations “on the basis of information on crimes within the jurisdiction of the Court”.

Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has appointed convicted extremist monk, Galagodaaththe Gnanasara to head a Presidential Task Force focused on achieving “One Country One Law”.

Gnanasara was previously found guilty on two counts and sentenced to 6 months in prison for threatening the wife of Prageeth Eknaligoda; a critic of the then government in 2010. He was released from prison following a presidential pardon. 

Sri Lankan police have arrested two illegal sand miners with tractors in Mullaitivu on Monday. 

The police reportedly caught the men in Kaiveli engaged in illegal sand smuggling activities based on a tip.

Police are conducting further investigations and are taking steps to present the suspects before the Mullaitivu court.

The Sri Lankan military forces have failed to release Tamil land in Mullaitivu despite moving their army camp out of Puthukkudiyiruppu, with Tamil families in the area continuing to suffer from displacement.

The displaced families asked, “it has been several months since the camp moved, why hasn’t our land been returned to us?"

Tamil families resettled in Puthukkudiyiruppu in 2009, when the army seized 19 acres of land for the construction of the 682nd Brigade army camp.

Sinhala farmers have taken to the streets in Medamulana to express their outrage at the President's blanket ban on the import of chemical fertilisers which have resulted in a plummeting of crop yields and further worsened the country's food shortages.

A full page advert in this morning’s The Herald warns the people of Scotland that Sri Lankan president Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who stands credibly accused of war crimes and genocide, will be coming to Glasgow next week.

Video footage from The Morning Lk

Following the brutal assault of a civilian by a Senior Deputy Inspector General (SDIG) in Ratnapura, Sri Lankan police have launched an investigation stating that such incidents would seriously damage the reputation of the police department.

The Sri Lankan army planted coconut trees in Northern Jaffna on occupied Tamil land, residents are raising concerns, whether the land will be returned to its owners.  

According to a statement released by the Vali North Resettlement Society, “soldiers are cutting down coconut trees on private property [then] preparing the same land to plant new coconut trees, they are trying to permanently seize the land.”