A senior Sri Lankan official told reporters in Colombo that several US Congress members have been “bought over with money” by the Tamil diaspora and called for an extension of a ban on several US-based groups.

Sarath Weerasekera, the Chairman of the Sectoral Oversight Committee on National Security and former Public Security Minister told reporters in Colombo that members of Congress had been “bought” after a resolution was introduced calling for self-determination for Eelam Tamils and a democratic independence referendum.

Tamil media workers across the North-East held remembrance events to mark 20 years since the assassination of Tamil journalist Aiyathurai Nadesan.

The Sri Lankan government officially announced a ‘day of mourning’ for the Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi earlier this month, with Colombo’s foreign minister leading a high level delegation to Tehran to attend the funeral.

The announcement of the “national mourning day” on May 21, came just three days after the North-East marked Tamil Genocide Remembrance Day. Commemoration activities to remember the Tamil war dead were marred by Sri Lankan police attempting to intimidate, disrupt and even arrest Tamils.

May 31, 1981 marked not only the burning of the Jaffna Public Library, but the beginning of a week-long rampage of violence by Sri Lankan security forces and Sinhala mobs which devastated the peninsula.

The violence and devastation was largely ignored by the island’s mainstream press, and even in Tamil Nadu reports did not reach the media for many days, as a result of the shutdown of press throughout the North and general censorship imposed by the Sri Lankan government. Notably, the office and presses of Eelanadu, a prolific Tamil daily coming out of Jaffna since 1959, were burnt to the ground by the mobs. The famous Poobalasingam Book depot was also burnt.

At midnight on May 31, 1981, the Jaffna Public Library, the crucible of Tamil literature and heritage, was set ablaze by Sri Lankan security forces and state-sponsored mobs. The burning has since been marked by Eelam Tamils as an act of genocide.

‘Ray of Hope’, a documentary detailing the journey of former Canadian MP for Scarborough- Rouge River, Rathika Sitsabaiesan, to Sri Lanka’s and the island’s troubled history with genocide and accountability, was screened for at the Frontline Club in London on Tuesday night.

Eelam People’s Democratic Party (EPDP) parliamentarian Kulasingam Thileeban has reportedly allocated nearly Rs 1 million in aid of development activities that will allow Sinhalese settlers to relocate to the army-sponsored Nandimithragaama in Vanni. 

Marking 15 years since the end of the armed conflict, Tamil Families of the forcibly Disappeared staged a protest in Mannar demanding an international investigation to shed light on the fate of the thousands forcibly disappeared by the Sri Lankan military.

The Mannar's Association of the Relatives of the Forcibly Disappeared held a protest today in front of the Mannar District Secretariat under the leadership of Manuel Udaya Chandra, the president of the assocation.

Responding to meetings between Tamil politicians and Sri Lanka’s President, during his visit to the Northern Province last week, Tamil Families of the Disappeared have protested the action of Tamil politicians and for not raising their issues.

Tamil Protests block an attempted land grab as the Sri Lankan Navy looks to survey four acres for military camp construction.

Leader of the Ilankai Tamil Arasu Katchi (ITAK), Sivagnanam Shritharan raised objections over the Sri Lankan Navy’s land grab at Ponnalai in Thiruvadi Nilai alleging that although the land acquisition was temporarily halted due to public protest, it should be stopped permanently.