Sri Lanka’s newly hired hangmen are “ready for the job,” said a prison official this week, as president Maithripala Sirisena vowed to press ahead with executions despite widespread international outcry.

Bandula Jayasinghe, an official at the Justice and Prison Reforms Ministry, told Arab News that the two executioners “have been fully trained”.

“Now they are ready for the job,” he said. “It’s good to keep their names secret so that the public and even their own family members don’t know they are hangmen.”

Arab News reports that up to 20 prisoners — eight Muslims, eight Tamils and four Sinhalese — could face the death penalty for alleged drug offences.

Sri Lanka’s tourist industry is still struggling to recover from the aftermath of the Easter Sunday attacks, with arrival numbers dropping by more than half from last year.

The Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority said there were just 63,072 tourist visits to Sri Lanka last month, a drop of 57% from June 2018, when the number was 146,828. Tourist numbers in May had fallen 70.8% to 37,802 compared with 129,466 a year ago

<p>The Sri Lankan army has confirmed that it will send 61 army personnel including 11 officers to assist the UN mission of South Sudan (UNMISS) in supporting their new hospitals.</p> <p>The deployment of Sri Lankan troops to assist with the medical project on behalf of the UN has raised concerns given the problematic record of the Sri Lankan military abroad. The UN had previously accused 134 Sri Lankan soldiers of sexually abusing and exploiting 9 Haitian boys and girls from late 2004 to mid-2007. The report read that:</p> <blockquote><p>

Trincomalee Chief Magistrate, M.Hansa, delivered the verdict today acquitting 13 Special Task Force members who were suspected of executing five Tamil youth whilst they spent an afternoon at Trincomalee beach on 2 January 2006.

Fifteen charges were filed against suspects and they were released due to the lack of evidence.

Sri Lankan police arrested the country’s police chief and its former defence minister on Tuesday, for alleged negligence over the Easter Sunday bomb attacks that killed over 250 people.

The arrests of police chief Pujith Jayasundara and former defence secretary Hemasiri Fernando, comes after Sri Lanka’s Attorney General de Livera accused the two of committing a “grave crime against humanity” for failing to prevent the attacks. Both men were reportedly receiving medical treatment at state-run hospitals at the time of their arrests. 

Tamils protested in Jaffna on Tuesday demanding the release of political prisoners, following the death of a detainee last month.

Muthaiya Sahathevan died of illness after 14 years of detention. Despite high profile protests and campaigns across the North-East, and the involvement of Sri Lankan politicians - including the president - the situation of Tamil political prisoners remains unchanged, with the majority in detention without trial or charge.

<p>Sri Lankan President, Maithripala Sirisena, said he rejected an appeal by United Nations Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, to reconsider his restoration of the death penalty after 43 years.</p> <p>“I told the Secretary-General that I want to save my country from drugs,” Sirisena said in a meeting in Colombo.</p> <p>“He telephoned me last week shortly after I signed four death warrants. I told him please allow me to stamp put the drug menace,” Sirisena said.</p> <p>He also accused the European Union of interfering in Sri Lanka’s domestic affairs.</p>

<p>Religious minorities in Sri Lanka continue to be attacked, said the US Department in its 2018 report on International Religious Freedom.</p> <p>According to the report, Buddhist nationalist groups, such as the Bodu Bala Sena (BBS), continued to promote the supremacy of the ethnic Sinhalese Buddhist majority and vilify religious and ethnic minorities, especially via social media during the Kandy riots in March 2018. These social media campaigns targeting religious minorities fuelled hatred and incited violence.</p>

<p>Vulnerable Tamil women have become worse-off under Sri Lanka’s emergency regulations, campaigners have said.</p> <p>Speaking at a conference on International Widows Day in Batticaloa, campaigners for female-headed households and families of disappeared said that surveillance and harassment by intelligence personnel have worsened since the Easter Sunday attacks.</p>

<p>The trial around the disappearance of two Tamil men has been adjourned after Sri Lanka’s former defence secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa failed to attend court to give testimony.</p> <p>The trial of the habeas corpus petition of two Tamil men known as Lalith and Kugan continued at the Jaffna Magistrate’s Court on June 21. The youths were forcibly disappeared from Jaffna in December 2011 while themselves helping to organise a protest for families of disappeared persons.</p> <p>Gotabhaya’s lawyer said that the former defence secretary was unable to appear before the court as he was recovering from heart surgery in Singapore.</p>