Britain’s Foreign Office Minister Lord Ahmad said the Sri Lankan government must make “more progress” in implementing it’s commitments to the United Nations Human Rights Council earlier this week.

Speaking at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, the minister said that though 2018 marks the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, “this is not a moment for idle nostalgia”.

“It is our opportunity to reaffirm the Declaration’s enduring relevance,” he added, stating that “We must do this now more than ever because all around the world these rights are under threat”.

The United States announced that it will re-establish its Peace Corps program in Sri Lanka, after the program was shut down on the island almost 20 years ago.

The Sri Lankan Army held a sports tournament at the Jaffna Security Force Headquarters in Palali, an army base built on occupied land categorised as a ‘high security zone’, which remains inaccessible to locals and landowners, nine years after the end of the war.

The father of a forcibly disappeared Tamil died this week, becoming the eighth parent to die while searching for their child since protests began last year.

74-year-old Nagalingam Sathiyavageswaran passed away on Wednesday after being admitted to Jaffna Teaching Hospital with sudden chest pains on Monday.

Mr Sathiyavageswaran had been searching for his son, S. Rajivan who was abducted by white van outside the family home in Thirunelveli, Jaffna, in 2006.

The son had been abducted just 15 days after his marriage.

Tamils and Muslims across the North-East protested on Thursday, calling for an end to atrocitities in Syria.

A Tamil asylum seeker who was deported from Australia last week continues to face harassment and intimidation from Sri Lankan security forces, The Guardian reported. 

Shantaruban was interrogated by Criminal Investigation Department (CID) officers for over four hours upon his arrival to Colombo last Thursday, and since then he has been visited twice by security officials. 

His phone was checked and they interrogated him further about his whereabouts during the end of the armed conflict, the paper reported. 

Just as the UN Human Rights Council's 37th session commences in Geneva, the Sri Lankan president appointed commissioners to the Office of Missing Persons (OMP). 

Mr Saliya Pieris was appointed as the Chairman of the Commission. Other commissioners included Ms Jayatheepa Punniyamoorthy, Major General (Rtd.) Mohanti Antonette Peiris, Dr Sriyani Nimalka Fernando, Mr Mirak Raheem, Mr Somasiri K Liyanage, Mr Somasiri K Liyanage and Mr Kanapathipillai Venthan. 

Hundreds of Tamil protestors marched to the DS office in Mullaitivu this week, to protest against the Sri Lankan military’s continued occupation of land in the North-East.

Sri Lankan security forces have continued to use torture against Tamils on the island, reports Al Jazeera, who has uncovered allegations and evidence of torture.

In a piece by Barnaby Phillips, Al Jazeera interviewed Tamils who had been beaten, burnt with cigarettes and raped.

A support group in London has helped at least 76 Tamils with rehabilitation activities, all of whom say they were tortured within the last three years, since the current Sri Lankan government came into power.

The Sri Lankan military’s continued occupation of land in the Vanni is threatening traditional livelihoods in local communities said a new report launched by the Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) and the National Fisheries Solidarity Movement (NAFSO) in Mullaitivu.

The report, entitled “The Vanni: Civilian Land under Military Occupation”, states that “although the war ended nine years ago, the military in the Northern Province still occupies vast stretches of land and is using it for economic purposes, among other things, with serious consequences”.