The Officer in Charge (OIC) at Maruthankerny police station has informed TNPF leader Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam that he is “an accused person” in last week’s Maruthankerny incident and that he may need to be questioned and arrested.
Sri Lankan police have arrested the Tamil National People's Front's (TNPF) Vadamaradchi East Organiser Ms. Arulmathy days after an incident at Maruthankerny where a police intelligence officer pointed his gun at TNPF leader Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam. The police officers surrounded the activists' house a little before 6:30am before arresting her. The activists’ husband confirmed that she was arrested in connection with her attendance at a meeting on June 2 but it is unclear under which provisions she has been placed under arrest. Last week, a meeting held by TNPF at a sports club in...
Tamil National Alliance (TNA) MP, Sivagnanam Sritharan, condemned the intimidation of Tamil National People’s Front (TNPF) leader, Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam, after a Sri Lankan intelligence officer pointed his gun at the TNPF leader. Sritharan slammed the incident as an illustration of “extreme repression”. He added that it shows the harm “the military and state investigators can pose to the normal lives of ordinary Tamil people”. The TNA MP demanded immediate action against the police officers and expressed his strong condemnation. Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam describing the incident
A Sri Lankan police intelligence officer pointed his gun to Tamil National People’s Front (TNPF) leader Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam after he was attacked during a meeting in Maruthankerny. Ponnambalam was at a meeting with a sports club in Maruthankerny earlier today where two unknown men were in the crowd. While the organisers were trying to verify everyone’s identity at the meeting, the two men refused to provide their details which resulted in an argument. Video of Ponnambalam describing the incident Ponnambalam then intervened saying he has parliamentary privilege and required their...
On Monday, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) approved a US 350 million dollar loan for Sri Lanka. The loan comes as part of a broader financial assistance package anchored by the International Monetary Fund's (IMF) Extended Fund Facility (EFF) for the island. Sri Lanka's State Minister of Finance, Shehan Semasinghe, welcomed the ADB approval in a tweet "We welcome the ADB's approval of US$350 million special policy-based loan to provide budget support to Sri Lanka as a part of a broader financial assistance based on IMF's EFF for economic stabilization, recovery and sustained growth." (1/2) We...
Sri Lanka’s cabinet has approved proposals to establish a South African style, “Truth and Reconciliation Commission” (TRC) despite continued demands from Tamil on the island for an international investigation into war crimes. The proposed TRC is not new, as human rights professor Kate Cronin-Furman highlights in her book “Human Rights and Hypocrisy, in 2013 and 2014 South African officials met several times with members of the Sri Lankan government to discuss implementing a TRC. This has been peddled “as an alternative to prosecutions, despite consistent messaging from international courts...
Tamil families of the disappeared in Vavuniya remembered the 42nd anniversary of the burning of Jaffna library. Flowers were laid and candles lit to commemorate the burning which was orchestrated by the Sri Lankan state. Over 95,000 unique and irreplaceable Tamil palm leaves (ola), manuscripts, parchments, books, magazines and newspapers, housed within an impressive building inspired by ancient Dravidian architecture, were destroyed during the burning. Some texts that were kept in the library, such as the Yalpanam Vaipavamalai (a history of Jaffna), were literally irreplaceable, being the...
Cover art by Sagi Thilipkumar At midnight on May 31, 1981, the Jaffna Public Library, the crucible of Tamil literature and heritage, was set ablaze by Sri Lankan security forces and state-sponsored mobs. The burning has since been marked by Eelam Tamils as an act of genocide.
Last week Sri Lanka’s President, Ranil Wickremesinghe, met with Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, and apologised for Sri Lanka’s unilateral withdrawal from an agreed Light Rail Transit (LRT) project and to discuss expanding bilateral projects. Speaking at a separate round table on “Sri Lanka’s Economic Revival & Opportunities for Japanese Enterprise”, Wickremesinghe maintained his focus on stabiling and liberalising the country’s economy whilst actively inviting new foreign ventures. Japan's leader reportedly emphasised the importance of “transparent and fair” debt restructuring and...
Source: @ShehanSema on Twitter India has extended its USD 1 billion credit line to Sri Lanka for an additional year. In March of last year, an agreement was signed between Sri Lanka and the State Bank of India (SBI) for a $1 billion credit. The credit was intended to aid the island after the economic crisis that left civilians without access to food, fuel, or essential medicine. Sri Lankan State Minister of Finance, Shehan Semasinghe, tweeted that materials were imported for $576.75 million of the initial $1 billion credit that was provided in March of 2022. (2/2) The initial agreement was...