Tamils from across the UK set off this evening as they head to Glasgow to protest Sri Lankan president Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s appearance at the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP26. 

The UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders expressed concern over Sri Lanka's inaction to respond to threats against human rights defenders. 

In a joint communication with other UN experts, Mary Lawlor, the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders, wrote to the Sri Lankan government, highlighting cases of alleged arbitrary detention, threats and intimidation against human rights defenders, journalists and trade union leaders Sudesh Nandimal Silva, Senaka Perera, Tharindu Jayawardhana and Joseph Stalin. 

Tamil Nadu politicians called on the Tamil diaspora to mobilize against Sri Lankan president Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s appearance in Scotland, heading a high-level delegation to the UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26).

^{Photo Credit: Thaarakam.net}

On Friday, 29 October, protesters gathered in Strasbourg, France, against the Sri Lankan Prime Minister Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s visit to Scotland for the UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26). 

A series of mobile digital adverts were placed across the city of Glasgow earlier today, as part of a campaign by Scottish Tamils as Sri Lanka’s president Gotabaya Rajapaksa visits the city for the UN climate summit COP 26.

The adverts which were placed on vans that roamed the roads surrounding COP26 venues and Glasgow city, warned that Rajapaksa should not be welcomed in Scotland due to his overseeing of war crimes and genocide.

^{Photo Credit: thaarakam.net}

On Friday, 29 October 2021, protestors gathered in front of the British Embassy in Belgium, condemning Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa's visit to Glasglow, Scotland. 

^{File photograph.}

A Tamil man who survived torture by the Sri Lankan security forces before fleeing to Scotland earlier this year, has accused Police Scotland of backing a regime responsible for human rights violations in a piece published in the Sunday Post today.

The Tamil man, who had been studying in Edinburgh went to Sri Lanka after his father fell ill in August of this year. Whilst there, he says he was “grabbed from the street and put into a white van and taken away.

Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) has doubled down on a directive issued to players not to ‘take the knee’ in support of the Black Lives Matter, despite several other sports team routinely making the gesture including in the current T20 Cricket World Cup.

As a Scottish Tamil campaign for international justice ahead of Sri Lankan president Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s visit to Glasgow continues at full steam, a curious advert appeared in this weekend’s edition of The Herald.

“Fostering greater accountability, restorative justice, and meaningful reconciliation,” read one of the lines in the full page advert, which was headed with a photograph of the war crimes accused Rajapaksa.

Tamil politicians from the North-East joined British and Canadian parliamentarians in denouncing Instagram’s censoring of Tamil Guardian’s page. 

Tamil Guardian’s Instagram account, was briefly reinstated on Friday after it was disabled on Wednesday without any prior warning or explanation. 

However, just over 12 hours later, it was disabled again.