^{Photograph: Tamil protestors in Colombo, 1956, shortly before they were attacked by Sinhala mobs. (Courtesy Victor Ivan)}

The EU parliament has passed a new resolution on Sri Lanka expressing “serious concern at the rapid deterioration of human rights” on the island and urging the Council to consider targeted sanctions against senior Sri Lanka officials accused of war crimes.

Former Northern Provincial Council member Durairasa Ravikaran called for Sri Lankan state forces to take accountability and impose sanctions on those who are repeatedly violating COVID-19 protocols by travelling from the South to the North-East.

Sri Lankan police officers have arrested individuals across Jaffna for allegedly “violating the travel ban” and interrogated for their purpose of travel.

A small Hindu temple on a street in Jaffna, near the A9 highway linking Jaffna and Kandy, was found destroyed on Tuesday morning.

Sri Lankan police have arrested ten people, including the provincial council’s deputy chairman for Puthukkudiyiruppu, Mullaitivu, following protests against the reopening of a garment factory amidst fears of the COVID-19 pandemic spreading. 

The Vavuniya campus of University of Jaffna has been converted into a separate state university and established as the "University of Vavuniya, Sri Lanka".   

The establishment was notified through a government extraordinary gazette signed by Sri Lankan Education Minister, Professor G.L. Peiris, yesterday. 

Dozens of activists and members of the Tamil community in Germany staged a protest outside a detention centre in Pforzheim, as German authorities deported an estimated 20-23 Tamil refugees to Sri Lanka despite the risk of persecution and torture that they face on the island.

Local Tamil activists alongside those from Amnesty International and other human rights organisations protesting outside the detention centre in an attempt to block the move for more than 70 hours. Despite this, the deportations took place yesterday.

Swiss Tamil activist group, “Phoenix - the Next Generation”, has spoken out against Switzerland’s proposed “Police Measures to Counter Terrorism” (PMT) which they warn will repress Tamil activists.

A Pillaiyar statue was stolen from a Sivan temple in Moongilaru, Mullaitivu last Thursday, just days after Sri Lankan police officers detained and threatened the temple's priests last week. Puthukkudiyiruppu police refused to accept a complaint from temple administration, who insisted that the police officers were complicit in the theft.

German Tamils commemorated the 47th anniversary of Ponnuthurai Sivakumaran’s passing  on June 5. Remembrances took place in Berlin, in front of Freie Universitat Berlin and in Johannez Rau Platz, Dusseldorf. 

A senior Sri Lankan official sparked outrage after he claimed that the dozens of journalists who had been murdered on the island were “third class ones”, in comments made to reporters at a press briefing last week.

The three-year-old daughter of a Tamil refugee family, Tharnicaa, was medically evacuated to a hospital in Perth, Australia, after being denied treatment by detention centre staff at Christmas Island.