Lawyers across the North-East have continued to boycott court activities to protest the ‘lack of respect’ for the judiciary shown by Sinhala Buddhist monks and Sri Lankan police, as the former directly disobeyed a court injunction and cremated a monk in the grounds of a Hindu temple with the explicit support of police, and also assaulted Tamil lawyers who had worked to secure the injunction.

The United Nations announced that it will ban all “non-essential” Sri Lankan troops deployed on peacekeeping missions, in response to the appointment of accused war criminal Shavendra Silva as head of the country’s military.

Tamils across the North-East protested against the visit of the war crimes accused Shavendra Silva this week, as he toured across Sri Lankan military bases and Buddhist viharas in the region.

Thousands protested in Mullaitivu town on Tuesday after a controversial Buddhist monk was cremated the previous day in the grounds of a Hindu temple, despite local opposition and in direct breach of a court injunction.

The Sri Lankan is reportedly set to lose several million dollars of funding through the United States’ Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), according to reports in the Colombo press after a public forum last week.

Speaking at a forum organised by Advocata Institute, Resident Country Director for the MCC Jenner Edelman said that Sri Lanka’s transition to an upper middle-income country may no longer be eligible for the funding.

Edelman also spoke about how the Sri Lankan government had delayed in signing the next phase of the agreement.

Tensions were high in Mullaitivu on Monday as the deceased monk of a controversial Buddhist vihara in Semmalai was cremated in the grounds of a Hindu temple, despite a court injunction prohibiting the funeral rites from being carried out on the temple’s premises.

The funeral was led by extremist Buddhist monk Gnanasara of the Sinhala nationalist Bodu Bala Sena organisation, recently released from prison after being pardoned by the Sri Lankan government, and attended by dozens of Sinhalese who were transported to the area from the South.

Sri Lanka’s former defence secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa and seven others have been acquitted of all charges filed against them by the Bribery Commission, over the case of the ‘Avant Garde’ private security firm accused of running floating armouries. 

A Sri Lankan navy admiral who has been investigated as a suspect over the disappearance of 11 Tamil youths has been promoted to the highest rank in the military in an elaborate ceremony last week.

Sri Lanka and Cambodia should “work together to spread teachings of Theravada Buddhism throughout the world,” said Sri Lanka’s president Maithripala Sirisena, whilst attending a Buddhist religious service in Phnom Penh last month.

Sirisena, who has increasingly burnished his Sinhala Buddhist nationalist credentials, said Buddhism “is the historical foundation of the relations between Sri Lanka and Cambodia” and called for closer ties between the two governments.

Tamils in Mullaitivu lamented the lack of progress in releasing their lands from Sri Lankan military occupation as locals from Keppapilavu demonstrated in front of a Sri Lankan government office last month.