The European Union’s Election Commission has decided against deploying a fully-fledged observer mission for Sri Lanka’s upcoming parliamentary elections, which is et to take place on August 5 despite logistical and health concerns relating to COVID-19.

The EU has instead proposed to send an Election Expert Mission, which will not have public visibility and will not qualify as electoral observers, due to coronavirus concerns.

Britain’s Minister of State for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office said the UK was “monitoring the situation in Sri Lanka closely” and continues to support “Sri Lanka's accountability commitments” made to the United Nations Human Rights Council, in response to questions on Sri Lanka this week.

Yet another Tamil father who was searching for his forcibly disappeared child has died today, despite more than 1,222 days of protest in Vavuniya.

Thirunavukarasu, a 69-year-old man from Chettikulam, spent more than a decade demanding information on the whereabouts of his son Wickeswaran, who went missing in Vavuniya in 2008.

For 1,222 days Thirunavukarasu joined other Tamil families of the disappeared in roadside protests in the district, demanding justice for their forcibly abducted loved ones.

The all Sinhala Presidential Task Force to manage “Archaeological Heritage” in the Eastern Province serves the interests of Sinhala Buddhists only says Tamil National Alliance Leader (TNA) leader R  Sampanthan.

In a letter to the Sri Lankan President, Sampanthan reportedly questioned why other religions and communities had been left out of the task force.  

In his letter, Sampanthan wrote:

The people from the village of Kanchuraimoddai in Vavuniya North, staged a protest on Monday calling for the “atrocious” land grab by the Sri Lanka forest department to be addressed.

The people who were displaced during the 1980’s and 90’s due to the war and ended up in places like India, have now returned to being denied access to their land. They cleaned and set up temporary bins on the land their parents used to live on.

The families of the disappeared in Mullaitivu have asked the international community to “urgently come forward and help investigate the Sinhala chauvinist government’s genocide by establishing a special tribunal” and to take the government to the International Criminal Court to seek justice.

Following a denial of responsibility for the Easter Sunday attack, Former Sri Lankan President, Maithripala Sirisena, claimed that the Easter Sunday attack, which killed over 250 people, was planned to disrupt his heavy-handed war on drugs.

Pro-government paramilitary leader Karuna Amman caused controversy in the Sinhala south this week, after he boasted of killing thousands of Sri Lankan soldiers as part of the LTTE’s capture of Elephant Pass in 2000, before he defected and joined the Sri Lankan state.

Addressing a political rally in the East, Karuna claimed to have killed “2000 to 3,000 Sri Lankan Army personnel in one night at Elephant Pass”.

In an open letter to Mahinda Rajapaksa, Prime Minister, and current Finance Minister, Mangala Samaraweera, the former Finance Minister, defends the conduct of Sri Lanka’s Central Bank officials from what he describes as a “tantrum” from Sri Lanka’s President, Gotabaya Rajapaksa.

The funeral of a Tamil man who was shot dead by the Sri Lankan army took place in Jaffna yesterday, as Sri Lankan security forces took out a court order banning all protests from taking place in the region.