Ambika Satkunanathan has resigned from her post as the Commissioner of the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka (HRCSL) in an announcement she posted online, effective from Saturday morning

Satkunanathan, a lawyer and human rights advocate, submitted her resignation to Sri Lankan president Goatabaya Rajapaksa on the 26th February and officially resigned on the 7th March 2020. 

The Sri Lankan military announced it had set up “improvised quarantine centres” in the Eastern province, as it prepares to “quarantine foreigners and Sri Lankan expatriates arriving here” as part of measures to tackle transmission of the corona virus.

Shavendra Silva, the war crimes accused head of the army who is subject to US travel sanctions, travelled to the Polonnaruwa and Batticaloa districts on Monday morning, as he inspected the makeshift camps the military had constructed. 

The former commander of Sri Lanka’s army Daya Ratnayake has lashed out at the United Nations and staunchly brushed off reports of mass atrocities committed by Sri Lankan troops, calling them “completely baseless and fabricated”.

Ratnayake, the current chairman of Sri Lanka’s Ports Authority, told the Daily Mirror that he felt “betrayed” by the former regime as it co-sponsored a UN resolution on accountability. “Not only me but all soldiers feel betrayed,” he said. “People outside Sri Lanka think we are barbarians.”

Former Finance Minister, Ravi Karunanayake, has been issued an arrest warrant for bond fraud.

The judgement was delivered by Colombo Fort Chief Magistrate Ranga who claims that the former Finance Minister as well as former Central Bank Governor, Arjun Mahendran, were involved in fraud at a bond auction on 29 and 31 March 2016. The Chief Minister has ordered the arrest of both Karunanayake, Mahendran and 8 others.

Sri Lankan President, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, claimed yesterday during International Women’s Day that he would work to create an equal platform for women, free from violence, despite record levels of sexual violence.

<p>“Impunity for sexual and gender-based violence is high in Sri Lanka, despite repeated assurances by consecutive governments to address this issue,” Amnesty International wrote in a blog marking International Women’s Day.</p> <p>The rights group highlighted that just in the first 15 days of 2020, 142 cases of rape, and 42 cases of serious sexual abuse, and 54 child abuse cases were reported.</p>

At least two local Sri Lankan newspapers have reportedly claimed that the government is set to release a soldier who was sentenced to death over the massacre of eight Tamil civilians.

The papers claim that Staff Sergeant Sunil Rathnayake is to be granted a Presidential pardon by Gotabaya Rajapaksa, though a date has not yet been set for the move.

“A large number of Tamils in Sri Lanka have died while in protest demanding the government to reveal the fate of their loved ones who are victims of enforced disappearances,”Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka (JDS) reports. 

“Already 69 mothers in our protest have died due to stress and various illnesses without finding solution to their grievances,” Leeladevi Anandanadaraja, the General Secretary of the Association for the Relatives of the Enforced Disappeared told the 43rd session of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC).

Tamil families of the disappeared sent a joint letter addressed to the UN High Commissioner, Michelle Bachelet, calling for the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) to recommend that Sri Lanka is investigated for their lack of fulfilment in providing answers for their missing loved ones.

A protest calling the Sri Lanka government to release Tamil political prisoners and to address the issue of missing persons, took place yesterday in Batticaloa. 

The protest, which took place at the Mahatma Gandhi Park in Batticaloa, was set up near the site of the memorial of executed journalists.