Tamil political parties across the island have begun filing their nomination papers for candidates ahead of Sri Lanka’s parliamentary election next month.

Tamil political parties across the island have begun filing their nomination papers for candidates ahead of Sri Lanka’s parliamentary election next month.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) has called on the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) to extend its ‘crucial’ mandate to ensure its continued reporting and evidence collection of Sri Lanka’s human rights abuses for future prosecutions. 

As Sri Lanka’s new president concluded talks with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) last week, the global body warned Colombo that “vulnerabilities and uncertainties do remain” and that it still needed to maintain "hard-won gains".

Tamil families of the disappeared said that more than 280 people had died in recent years, without never knowing the fate of their loved ones who were forcibly disappeared by the Sri Lankan state.

Fishermen from Thangachimadam, along with families of those imprisoned by the Sri Lankan Navy, have embarked on a hunger strike, demanding the immediate release of their relatives who were arrested for allegedly crossing into Sri Lankan waters while fishing.

The Indian Consulate in Jaffna organized a tree-planting campaign and a cycle parade in Jaffna town to mark Mahatma Gandhi's 155th birthday last week.

Writing in the aftermath of the election of Sri Lanka’s President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, the British Tamils Forum (BTF) urged for Tamils in Sri Lanka to form a “strategic alliance” and continue their demand for self-determination.

In their statement, the BTF detail the long history of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), the party of Sri Lanka’s president, of Sinhala chauvinism and deep opposition towards devolution for Tamils. 

Following his appointment to office, Sri Lanka’s new President Anura Kumara Dissanayake met with Sri Lanka’s Chiefs of Defence Forces, including the alleged war criminal, and Chief of Defence Staff, General Shavendra Silva.

Sri Lanka’s newly elected president, Aruna Kumara Dissanayake, has made it clear that strengthening ties with India, the regional powerhouse, will be a cornerstone of his foreign policy. Within hours of his election victory, Dissanayake held his first meeting with a foreign official—India’s High Commissioner, Santosh Jha, in Colombo.

 

The North-East Coordinating Committee (NECC) has called on Eelam Tamil political parties to unite ahead of the upcoming Sri Lankan general elections to ensure strong Tamil representation in parliament.

Switzerland

^{A Sri Lankan protestor attempts to obstruct a Tamil genocide memorial event in Canada in August.}