Residents of Parangikamam, a village in Manthai West, Mannar have complained that swathes of forest near their area are being illegally deforested by the Sri Lankan government and that their land has become appropriated by private persons and foreigners. 

Addressing Sri Lankan Parliament, President Rajapaksa admonished the record of the previous administration claiming that they left the economic and security apparatus of Sri Lanka in ruins whilst, “the terrorism, which we ended in 2009, had re-emerged in a more dangerous form”.

“We went through a period where making comments about our character, our culture and nationality was a cause for insult and ridicule. We have changed that” Rajapaksa claimed.

The Sri Lankan navy opened fire at Tamil Nadu fishermen on Thursday whilst they were engaged in fishing near the waters of Dhanushkodi off the coast of the Pamban island. 

The Sri Lankan Navy, which was patrolling the sea at the time, used a loudspeaker and threatened to arrest the more than 20 fishermen who were on the spot, allegedly for violating the maritime boundary between India and Sri Lanka.  

Marking, International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, the International Truth and Justice Project (ITJP) released a statement highlighting several recent cases of “abduction and torture of Tamils perpetrated by the Sri Lankan security forces under the government of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa.”

Despite ongoing criticism of its involvement in civilian affairs in the North-East, the Sri Lankan military launched several projects in June, normalising wider patterns of militarisation of the Tamil homeland

Leader of the United National Party, Ranil Wickremesinghe, criticised Sri Lanka’s militarised response to the COVID-19 pandemic noting that it is being led by the head of Sri Lanka’s army, Shavendra Silva.

Fitch Ratings has warned that ending the suspension on Sri Lankan bank investments in international sovereign bonds (ISBS) could lead to increased bank exposure to sovereign and foreign-currency funding and liquidity risks.

The dire state of Sri Lanka’s banks is highlighted in Fitch’s statement which notes that an estimated third of bank assets were exposed to the central government at the end of 2020 and face threats “foreign-currency risks, including through their US dollar-denominated ISB investments”.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rightgs and the US ambassador for Sri Lanka have condemned the pardoning of convicted murderer, former MP, and close Rajapaksa ally, Duminda Silva.

In 2016, Sri Lanka’s courts found Silva guilty, along with four others, of the unlawful execution of fellow politician Bharatha Lakshman Premachandra and three of his supporters during local elections in Colombo in 2011.

The Sri Lankan government granted presidential pardons to 94 political prisoners convicted under the draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA), including 16 alleged "former members of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE)”. The pardon was issued earlier today to supposedly coincide with the Buddhist festival of Poson Poya.

A Buddhist worship service was held at the Mannar Mathota Raja Maha Viharaya on Tuesday to "exterminate COVID-19" in Sri Lanka.