^{Vavuniya Families of the disappeared protest}

Vavuniya families of the disappeared have marked 1,600 days of continuous protest and condemned China’s growing influence across the Tamil homeland and its obstruction of justice in holding Sri Lanka accountable for war crimes at the United Nations Security Council.

Sri Lankan President, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, has featured on the Reporters Without Borders (RSF) 2021 gallery of “predators of press freedom”.

RSF note that the gallery highlights heads of states “who trample on press freedom by creating a censorship apparatus, jailing journalists arbitrarily or inciting violence against them”.

They further add

^{21 Black Tiger elite commandos who took part in the raid on a Sri Lankan airbase in Anuradhapura, 2007}

On July 5, Eelam Tamils across the world remember and mourn the sacrifices made by the LTTE's elite women and men, the Black Tigers. “Karumpuli Naal” marks the sacrifice made by the first Black Tiger, Captain Miller, or Vallipuram Vasanthan, 34 years ago.

Speaking to the media, leader of the Tamil National People’s Front (TNPF), Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam, denounced the encroachment of Chinese businesses engaged in sea cucumber farming in Jaffna and Kilinochchi.

Whilst delivering aid in Puthukkudiyiruppu to those worst affected by the pandemic, he told the media.

A Sri Lankan army soldier attacked a Tamil youth, in Ananthapuram, Mullaitivu for allegedly not "wearing a mask" in public.

Amnesty International urged the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka (HRCSL) to call on Sri Lanka to act in accordance with its international human rights obligations and immediately release detained poet, Ahnaf Jazeem, who has been in detention for over 400 days. 

^{Batticaloa Airport, January 2018}

Batticaloa Airport will now be developed as a complete domestic airport and will receive new and modern amenities, stated Tourism Minister Prasanna Ranatunga, after conducting an inspection tour of the airport on 1 July. 

The secretary of the Vavuniya Families of the Disappeared association, Gopalakrishnan Rajkumar, called on the European Union to "repeal the GSP+" trading preference and work with the US to achieve a just "political solution". 

^{Photograph: Army.lk}

The Sri Lankan army is set to officially declare the country free from mines and explosives by 2022. Although twelve years have passed since the end of the armed conflict in the North-East, intense search operations and raids have continued to be carried out in Tamil communities. 

Tamil National Alliance (TNA) MP, Charles Nirmalanathan has urged the Sri Lanka president Gotabaya Rajapaksa to take immediate action to release all remaining political prisoners held under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA), after 16 Tamil political prisoners received presidential pardons at the end of June. 

During a press conference at his Mannar office last week, Nirmalanathan spoke on behalf of prisoners "who appealed to the High Court, who are awaiting trial, and those detained without charges.”