Construction of illegal Buddhist structures continues in the northeast homeland with the assistance of the military. Thissa Raja Vihara, a Buddhist temple, is being built in Thaiyiddi Jaffna - what is privately owned land that is being occupied by the Sri Lankan army. 

Sri Lanka’s tea exports have dropped to a 23 year low as the country is in the midst of its worst economic crisis in living memory. 

Tea, Sri Lanka’s biggest export, brought an estimated $1.3 billion annually before the island was hit with its current economic crisis. 

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I have been informed by a very reliable source that the Government is using chemical gas cannisters which were bought down during the LTTE civil war.

The reason for this is because the Government does not have money to import standard issue cannisters.

On this day 13  years ago, Stephen Sunthararaj, an activist who had exposed the trafficking of Tamil children into international prostitution rings, was abducted and forcibly disappeared in Colombo by armed men in military uniforms.

As part of his work he had told the then United States Ambassador in Colombo about prostitution rings run by government aligned paramilitaries in Jaffna. The paramilitaries were trafficking children into sex rings in India and Malaysia with the help of immigration officials.

Sri Lanka’s president has once more declared a state of emergency on the island, as police fired tear gas at anti-government protestors earlier today.

A Sri Lankan police officer opened fire as officers clashed with locals in Amparai last night, leaving at least two civilians hospitalised.

Tamil families of the disappeared in Vavuniya marked their 1900th day of continuous roadside protest yesterday, in pursuit of answers to the whereabouts of their loved ones.

A summit that pulls together Tamils from across the globe has kicked off in London this morning, with professionals and academics from over 70 countries set to attend the three-day conference.

The General Secretary of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) has called for Sri Lankan police to open an investigation after a statute of SWRD Bandaranaike was temporarily blindfolded by protestors last week, claiming a Tamil Guardian article had inspired the move.

Tamil families of the disappeared are not protesting because of Sri Lanka’s economic collapse, but to find the whereabouts of their missing loved ones said the head of the association for enforced disappeared persons in Vavuniya in remarks to reporters last week.

In 2008, Thangarasa Selvarani’s son Thangarasa Thayaparan, then aged 28, was taken by the Sri Lankan army in front of her eyes.

It was 7 days after the birth of his child. He was sleeping outside their home in Cheddikulam, Vavuniya, after a day of wage labour, loading sand into trucks.

Selvarani told him to sleep inside, it was dark and the barking of the street dogs was out of character.

He said it was too hot, and he wanted to sleep outside.

Sri Lanka's Finance minister has announced his intent to increase the country's sales tax, after conceding the government made a mistake when It almost halved the rate of value-added tax to 8% in 2019.

Batticaloa journalists marked World Press Freedom Day with a vigil to pay tribute to the media workers that have been killed in Sri Lanka.

The journalists lit candles and laid flowers in tribute to their murdered colleagues.