In a recent ceremony, President Maithripala Sirisena opened the Lanka Patuna bridge.

“The bridge which is 150 meters long, built under the supervision of Road Development Authority will facilitate the devotees who visit the Lanka Patuna temple,” the President’s webpage stated.

After receiving further pressure from Mullaitivu police earlier this week to submit a list of the names of the dead that were carved on stones as part of a Mullivaikkaal event last week, Tamil civil society activist and programme director of Adayaalam Centre for Policy Research (ACPR) Father Elil has now been asked by police for the addresses of those names on the list. 

Tamil Sinhala and Muslim civil society actisits called for an immediate halt to the ongoing harassment of Rev Fr Elil Rajendram over his efforts to conduct a remembrance event on May 18.

See full statement below.

We, the undersigned individuals and organisations, strongly condemn the continued police harassment of Rev. Fr. Elil Rajendram, a Tamil Catholic Priest belonging to the Society of Jesus (Jesuits), based in Mullaithivu, Northern Sri Lanka.

Two motorcycles were recovered from a well inside a recently released High Security Zone (HSZ) in Jaffna on Thursday.

A member of Thirunelvely's Kali Amman Kovil is being investigated after an image of Tamil Eelam was attached to the deity and displayed at a festival on Tuesday.

The image was displayed at the during the third day of the temple's festival.

Several Buddhist organisations staged a protest against moves to arrest Bodu Bala Sena General Secretary Ven. Galagoda Aththe Gnanasara Thera.

The Vadamaradchchy Christian Union condemned the ban on memorialization that was issued to local activist, Reverend R. Elilrajan, who was prohibited from facilitating a memorial event.

The memorial event included stones with the name of those killed in the final stages of the war. The Sri Lankan police argued that this form of memorialization might interfere with national security, national unity and peace.

The Tamil Civil Society Forum (TCSF) in statement released today, called on Sri Lanka to take concrete action against the Muslim community in various parts of the country.

“The institutional tolerance that the law order and machinery shows to Sinhala Buddhist nationalist forces is at the root cause of this lawlessness," read the statement. 

Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena named a new foreign minister, as he reshuffled his cabinet this week, his first such move since coming to power in 2015.

Mangala Samaraweera, who was criticised by the opposition and Sinhala nationalists, for agreeing to co-sponsor a UN Human Rights Council resolution in 2015 has now been moved to a new portfolio. He will now be the government's finance and media minister.

Three Tamil judges have been chosen by the Sri Lankan Chief Justice top preside over a special trial-at-bar for the rape and murder of Pungudutivu student Vithya Sivaloganathan in 2015.

The trial will be held at the Jaffna High Court, with Vavuniya High Court judge Balasingam Sasi Mahenthiran leading alongside Jaffna High Court judge Manikkavasagam Ilancheliyan and Trincomalee High Court judge Annalingam Premashankar.

Sri Lanka’s Field Marshal Sarath Fonseka reiterated that the armed forces were not collectively responsible for war crimes stating,

“We don’t need to worry about human rights as we are facing allegations due to certain isolated incidents. No one can point fingers at the military as a whole and I take responsibility for the collective conduct  of the military.”

Speaking to the Sundayleader, Mr Fonseka further added,

The Tamil National Alliance will pressure the Sri Lankan government against passing new anti-terrorism legislation.

Families of the disappeared protested in Mannar during Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe’s visit on Friday.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is assisting the Sri Lankan government in a project that aims to provide potable and irrigation water for dry zones in the North.

The project aims to divert water from the Mahaweli River system to the reservoirs in the North. Specifically, the project aims to retain excess water accumulated through the monsoon flows.