Over 250 Tamils were arrested in a province-wide police operation conducted in the North on Saturday.

Led by the Deputy Inspector General of Police for the Northern Province, over 2000 police officers across the Jaffna, KKS, Kilinochchi, Vavuniya, Mullaitivu and Mannar forces conducted search and arrest operations, with over 3500 individual searches and checks being reported.

As well as the 250 arrests for charges ranging from antisocial behaviour, drug trafficking and black-market alcohol trading, traffic police ticketed around 220 motorists.

Sri Lanka's High Commissioner to Canada, Ahmed A Jawad rejected allegations that the Sri Lankan military has committed war crimes and crimes against humanity against Tamils. 

His comments were in response to an article written by the Canadian MP, Gary Anandasangaree entitled 'Sri Lanka's military aren't ready to be peacekeepers', which highlighted the lack of justice for crimes committed by the military against Tamils, as well as against civilians in Haiti whilst the military was deployed as UN peacekeepers. 

Tamils in the East have been clearing destroyed LTTE cemeteries in preparation for Maaveerar Naal.

Sri Lankan military forces attended a lecture on 'compassion' which took place at the Palaly army camp on Thursday.

Sri Lanka's joint opposition criticised the government's 2018 budget which was detailed on Friday, stating that it "panders" to International Monetary Fund. 

The MP Bandula Gunawardene said the "budget was sure to fail as in it the government was trying to increase foreign investments by relaxing laws for foreigners and imposing excessive taxes on the people."

"[The] budget panders to the IMF's whims and fancies", the Daily Mirror quoted the Joint Opposition as saying. 

The TNA MP Raviraj was remembered in Jaffna on Friday, on the 11th anniversary of his assassination.

Freedom From Torture called on the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to launch an immediate investigation of evidence of ongoing torture in Sri Lanka on Thursday.

In a letter to the United Nations High Commissioner Zeid Al Hussein the London based rights organisation said,

The Sri Lankan minister of finance, Mangala Samaraweera told parliament as he detailed the government's 2018 budget yesterday, that it would include a number of measures to ensure "reconciliation and national unity". 

The 2018 budget speech includes a number of pledges including that the Office of Missing Persons would be fully operationally from 2018 with Rs 1400 million allocated towards this. 

The Asia desk of the Committee to Protect Journalists Asia on Friday expressed concern over the blockage of the news website, Lanka-e-News, by the Sri Lankan authorities this week. 

"CPJ is concerned about reports that news site Lanka E News has been blocked in #SriLanka because of its critical reporting. This is a press freedom violation and access to the website should be restored immediately," CPJ Asia tweeted. 

The move came just a day after the website published a story detailed allegations of corruption by the president's office. 
 

The Washington-based advocacy group PEARL has criticised premature international praise and engagement of Sri Lanka, in a statement condemning the current government’s torture of Tamils revealed in a report by the Associated Press.

“Despite evidence of ongoing torture and continued impunity for atrocity crimes, Western nations are pursuing friendlier relations with the Sri Lankan state,” the organisation said.