The families of the disappeared in Vavuniya condemned the assault of the two Tamil Guardian correspondents in Mullaitivu on Monday and insisted that “media repression will kill democracy”.  

On the 1334^th day of continuous protests in Vavuniya yesterday, the secretary of the Vavuniya families of the disappeared stated;

Speaking from their hospital beds in Mullaitivu, two Tamil Guardian correspondents who were attacked whilst working on a story on illegal deforestation have recounted the assault and spoken out about their fears of further attacks.

Shanmugam Thavaseelan and Kanapathipillai Kumanan were both working on a story on illegal deforestation that had been taking place in Mullaitivu, when they were assaulted on Monday. 

On Monday the 12th of October, two Tamil Guardian correspondents were assaulted and hospitalised in a brutal attack in Mullaitivu.

Our two colleagues, Kanapathipillai Kumanan and Shanmugan Thavaseelan, were working on an important story on illegal deforestation when they were set upon and attacked with iron rods. The vicious attack left them both with injuries that required hospital treatment. Both journalists had the evidence they had gathered deleted and money stolen.

This assault of our colleagues is yet another blatant attack on the freedom of the Tamil press. It remains completely unacceptable and must be urgently addressed.

The former head Sri Lanka's army and accused war criminal Sarath Fonseka labelled 12-year-old Balachandran Prabhakaran, who was murdered in May 2009, a “terrorist”, in a debate in parliament last Tuesday.

Updated 19.00

Tamil Guardian's Mullaitivu district correspondents were assaulted this morning by four persons in Murippu, Mullaitivu, while reporting on illegal logging and timber smuggling in the area.

A document that has been released in public domain and on multiple news websites shows that the Supreme Court will approve the proposed 20th Amendment to the Sri Lankan constitution.

A master’s degree in Tamil has been added to the accepted qualifications at the Pandit Deenadayal Upadhyaya Institute of Archaeology in India, following opposition from political leaders in Tamil Nadu.

The postgraduate diploma course in Archaeology at the institution initially listed master’s degrees in Indian Classical languages such as Sanskrit, Pali, Prakriti, Arabic or Persian as qualifications but omitting Tamil and other classical languages as acceptable qualifications.

Thousands of hair salons across Tamil Nadu closed in protest of a court’s decision to acquit an accused child rapist last week. The protests held demanded justice for the child victim, who was raped and murdered.

The 12-year-old’s body was discovered at her house in Dindigul in April last year, with a live electrical wire around her neck and placed inside her mouth and nose. Her 17-year-old neighbour was arrested for allegedly committing the crime. An autopsy report revealed that the child was raped and suffocated to death.

Sri Lanka’s Foreign Secretary, Jayanath Colombage, has reported that US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, will be visiting Sri Lanka following a meeting between President Rajapaksa and senior Chinese diplomats.

Pompeo is expected to arrive on 27 October and, the Sunday Times reports, that he will be “the highest-level US government official of cabinet rank to visit the country since one of his predecessors, John Kerry, visited Sri Lanka in 2015”.

A Tamil mother, who spent 12 years searching for her missing son who was forcibly disappeared, passed away in Vavuniya.

Periyasamy Manonmani, aged 70 from Maharambaikulam, Vavuniya passed away earlier this week on Wednesday (October 7th). She actively participated in protests for 1328 consecutive days in Vavuniya, where she demanded justice for her missing son who was forcibly disappeared.