Sri Lankan authorities apply laws in discriminatory ways, with Tamil protests and gatherings in the North-East disproportionately facing crackdowns, the UN Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and association said last week.

The special rapporteur Clément Nyaletsossi Voulé said in his closing statement of his official trip to the island that although Sri Lanka had a comprehensive legal framework governing the right to freedom of peaceful assembly, this was “scattered in different sets of laws and regulations which seem to be interchangeably enforced”.

A special service was held in Batticaloa last week, to mark three months since the Easter Sunday attacks that claimed hundreds of lives.

A disappearances activist who had been searching for her son for over eleven years died on Wednesday.

Sebamalai Theresambal died of cardiac arrest. Her son Sebamalai Selvan was taken by the Sri Lankan navy on July 1, 2008 and never returned.

<p>Visiting UN Special Rapporteur, Clément Nyalestsossi Voule met with the Chief Justice and High court judges despite assurance from the Speaker earlier this week to block the scheduled meeting.</p> <p>Speaker of Parliament, Karu Jayasuriya, said there had been a meeting between the UN Special Rapporteur and the Chief Justice but noted that it was a courtesy call in the company of foreign ministry officials.</p> <p>Ministry Additional Secretary Ahmed A Jawad had to written to the Chief Justice and High Court judges, telling them to provide the UN official with details regarding specific cases that are currently being heard by the Court.</p>

Sri Lankan soldiers have organised yet another music show in Jaffna, as thousands of troops remain stationed in the Northern city despite calls for demilitarisation.

The Sri Lankan government announced that Viraj Mendis, the Sinhalese chairperson of the International Human Rights Association – Bremen (IMRV), has been added to their list of known “terrorists” in an updated gazette notification that has been slammed as a "escalation in political repression".

Mendis, who joins dozens of other Tamils who have been on the list, is accused of “funding terrorism”.

The Sri Lanka Freedom Party’s (SLFP) former General Secretary Rohana Lakshman Piyadasa lashed out at the Tamil diaspora for “undermining Sri Lanka” and criticised the United National Party (UNP) for allowing the 1983 Black July pogrom to take place and giving Sri Lanka “a bad name”.

“It was a pogrom against Tamils by a few Sinhalese aided and abetted by the J.R. Jayawardene regime,” claimed current secretary Dayasiri Jayasekera at a press conference on Wednesday.

A British woman who was raped by a local employee at a hotel in Bentota and subsequently found she was pregnant, has had her case referred to the European Court of Justice.

The woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was raped by an electrician employed by her hotel the Club Bentota in Sri Lanka,. She subsequently discovered she was pregnant and had to undergo testing to ensure the baby’s father was her husband, reports Herald Scotland.

Her case has now been referred to the European Court of Justice, as she attempts to claim compensation from Kuoni Travel Ltd, the tour operator through which she booked the luxury holiday.

British authorities announced they would launch an investigation after human waste was reported to be part of a tranche of hazardous waste exported to Sri Lanka and discovered in over 100 containers at Colombo port this week.

Some of the 111 containers date as having arrived far back as 2017, and reportedly contain body parts and syringes, mixed with mattresses and other plastics. The containers had apparently been disguised to make it seem as if they held recyclable metals.

Prosecutors have charged a Tamil man in Germany over claims he was involved in the 2005 assassination of Sri Lanka's foreign minister, Lakshman Kadirgamar.

Authorities announced that the man, Navanithan G, has been charged as an accessory to murder and with membership of a foreign terrorist organization.