Tamil families of the disappeared held a protest outside the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) office this morning in Jaffna as they demand answers regarding the fates and locations of their forcibly disappeared loved ones. 

The families have been holding roadside protests since 2017 under horrible weather conditions calling for justice and accountability. 

"Where are they? Where are our loved ones?" the families chanted. 

Sri Lanka's Counter-Terrorism Investigation Department (CTID) summoned Tamil community activist Kanagasabai Vimalathas, over his social media posts relating to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). 

The Mullaitivu based activist, was interrogated for over four hours in Vavuniya in relation to his posts on social networking sites such as Facebook, Whatsapp and Viber and was also questioned over his social activism organisation. 

Writing in The Herald  this week, Wayne Jordash QC and Uzay Yasar Aysev of Global Rights Compliance LLP, called for Police Scotland to end their training programme with Sri Lanka following heaps of evidence highlighting human rights abuses. 

The advert forms part of a campaign led by Scottish Tamils ahead of the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference, also known as COP26. 

Earlier this week, a landmark legal submission was filed by Global Rights Compliance LLP with the International Criminal Court (ICC) calling on the Chief Prosecutor to “investigate and in due course arrest” several senior Sri Lankan officials for crimes against humanity.

A full page advert on page 7 of The Herald called for Police Scotland to “not train human rights abusers but investigate them.” 

The advert which forms part of a campaign led by Scottish Tamils with the support of other Eelam Tamil activists, highlights human rights abuses committed by Sri Lanka’s security forces who are trained by Police Scotland. 

Within 12 hours of reactivating our account, Instagram has inexplicably disabled Tamil Guardian’s page once more, without warning or explanation. 

Since our account was reactivated this morning, we posted one breaking story, which garnered thousands of likes within hours. Our work is crucial and it is being silenced.

We have still not received any explanation from Meta and Instagram as to why our account has been repeatedly disabled and why our posts have been removed, despite attempts to reach out through various channels.

Stephen Timms, MP for Eastham, called for Sri Lanka’s Army Commander Shavendra Silva to be sanctioned under the UK Global Sanctions Regime, for his involvement in the gross violation of human rights at the end of the armed conflict. 

“We should use it to sanction those guilty of war crimes in Sri Lanka. The US rightly designated army commander Shavendra Silva,” Timms stated.  

China has blacklisted the People's Bank, the second largest state-owned commercial bank in Sri Lanka, over a dispute of payment for imported organic fertiliser. 

The ban follows a dispute over alleged contaminated fertiliser being imported in which the Sri Lankan government refused to pay for. The People's Bank of Sri Lanka was blacklisted by the Economic and Commerical Office of the Chinese Embassy in Sri Lanka for failing to make payment according to the Letter of Credit filed by the Chinese fertiliser company Qingdao Seawin Biotech Group. 

Projections across Scotland, including on the Scottish Parliament Building in Edinburgh, called for international accountability for the Tamil genocide in Sri Lanka ahead of the island’s president Gotabaya Rajapaksa visiting the country next week.

“Wanted for Genocide, President of Sri Lanka,” warned the projections which were placed in several locations across Scotland.

Sri Lankan Army chief, Shavendra Silva was greeted by a military guard of honour on his visit to Moscow on 25 October. 

Silva is visiting Moscow on the invitation extended to him by the Commander-in-chief of the Russian Land Forces, General of the Army, Oleg Salyukov. Salyukov had visited Sri Lanka in February 2020 in which an open invitation was extended to the Sri Lankan Army Chief to visit the Russian Federation.

More than 48 hours after our Instagram page was deactivated without warning, we are now finally back online.

We still have not received any explanation as to why our page was disabled. We still have not received any explanation as to why our content keeps being removed. We have reached out to Facebook, Instagram's parent company, directly through several channels. And we still have not received any response.