Journalists from across the North-East gathered in Batticaloa on Saturday to participate in a demonstration calling for media freedom and demanding justice for the killings of numerous Tamil journalists. 

The demonstration was held on the thirteenth anniversary of the abduction and murder of the Tamil journalist and editor of TamilNet, Dharmeratnam Sivaram. 

The owners of the ‘Sridhar Cinema’ building in Jaffna town have filed a case against Douglas Devananda, leader of the EPDP, in a bid to recover their property, which is currently illegally occupied by the EPDP, and to recover damages accrued over the 22 year illegal occupation.

The Sridhar Cinema was built by the family which owns the land, on Stanley Road, in 1974 but was closed down around 1990 due to the war, when the landowners also fled Jaffna.

Police officers in stations across the Jaffna division have had their leave suspended indefinitely, with the North’s police chief citing failure to tackle gang violence around Jaffna town and its suburbs as the reason.

Officers belonging to the nine police stations in the Jaffna division have had their leave cancelled by the Northern Province’s Senior Deputy Inspector General of Police, Roshan Fernando.

On April 22, youths reportedly entered three homes in Thenmaradchi and Chavakacheri, including the home of a local government official and vandalised the properties. 

Tamils across the North-East remembered S. J. V. Chelvanayakam, referred to fondly as Thanthai Chelva and the father of Tamil nationalism, with a blood held in Batticaloa and a commemorative event held at his memorial in Jaffna. 

The Sri Lankan government has placed a ban on the construction of a genocide memorial in Jaffna University, student union representatives have reported.

Construction on the monument to commemorate the thousands of Tamils killed in the final stages of the war, including Jaffna University students, began last week.

After some initial disagreements between the student union and the university administration about the location of the memorial, work went ahead with the monument being located close to the existing Maaveerar (LTTE martyrs) monument in the campus grounds.

Reform policy implementation in Sri Lanka looks to “become slower and more challenging,” as “pressure for more populist policies” may rise as Sri Lanka enters an election cycle, said Fitch Ratings today.

“Recent political developments in Sri Lanka have created some uncertainty over reform momentum and fiscal consolidation, and prolonged upheaval could undermine investor confidence ahead of large external debt maturities in 2019-22,” said the agency in a statement released from Hong Kong.

Parliament was effectively suspended until 8 May upon resignation of coalition minsters,” it said.

US soldiers in military uniform held a music concert in Trincomalee on Wednesday, as they marked their arrival on the island for this year’s Pacific Partnership exercise with the Sri Lankan navy

The exercise, set to take place over the next two weeks, will see at least 36 different events with personnel from the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, France, Peru, and Japan, alongside Sri Lankan soldiers.

The Sri Lankan government announced that it will ban the sale of all meat, alongside the liquor and gambling, for the Buddhist festival of Vesak, which is due to be celebrated next month.

The latest move comes after Sri Lanka’s President Maithripala Sirisena declared that International Workers’ Day, commonly marked as May Day, will now be shifted from May 1st to May 7^th due to the festival, after pressure from various Buddhist lobby groups. This is reportedly the first time in Sri Lanka’s history that May Day festivities had been shifted.

The head of Bodu Bala Sena, a Sinhala nationalist extremist group, met with a Sri Lankan government minister this week, despite the organisation’s history of hate speech and inciting racial violence.

Sri Lankan soldiers have begun constructing installations to celebrate the Buddhist festival of Vesak in the popular grounds where May Day rallies usually take place, forcing May Day rally organisers to find alternative locations this year.