Tamil parliamentarians from the TNA (Tamil National Alliance) and the TNPF (Tamil National People's Front) spoke out against the 20th Amendment today as it passed with a two-thirds majority needed. 

The latest count states that 156 parliamentarians voted for the amendment with 65 votes against.

The measure will greatly expand the powers of the executive presidency whilst also removing the ability of parliament to act as a check and balance. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, who expressed concern that it would "negatively impact the independence of key institutions, including the National Human Rights Commission".

The intelligence wing of the Sri Lankan government has arrested two people, including a former member of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), on allegations of illegally manufacturing firearms in the Thirukovil region of Amparai district.

Based on a tip-off received by them, the Amparai division of the intelligence wing sieged a building in Thirukovil which was reportedly a hub for manufacturing spare parts for machine guns. A 60 year old metalsmith named Kanthaiya Thavarasa was apprehended in the operation. 

Sri Lanka’s parliament has voted to pass the controversial 20^th Amendment to the Constitution, in a move that president Gotabaya Rajapaksa hopes will strengthen his office and remove several constitutional checks and balances on his power.

Students at Jaffna paid tribute to two of their peers who were shot dead by Sri Lankan police four years ago, and whose murder still has not been brought to justice.

Media faculty students Nadarajah Kajan and Vijayakumar Sulaxan were shot dead by Jaffna police officers in Kokkuvil on October 20, 2016, sparking protests across the North-East, around the island and internationally.

Sri Lanka’s army commander, and alleged war criminal, Shavendra Silva, has denied accusations of abusing factory workers, in a Brandix garment factory, who were forced into quarantine centres by the military.

These denials relate to a complaint filed with the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka, by representatives of the Free Trade Zone (FTZ) factory workers. The complaint alleges “cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment” of 98 factory workers, the majority of which were women.

Sri Lanka’s parliament has begun debating the controversial 20^th Amendment to the Constitution, with reports that 24 Opposition MPs may support the government proposal, just days after a Supreme Court ruling.

The recent controversy over actor Vijay Sethupathi’s announcement that he would be playing Muttiah Muralitharan in the Sri Lankan cricketer’s biopic escalated rapidly. No sooner did Sethupathi tweet that he was ‘honoured’ to be part of the film than a barrage of opposition began to pour in, with the actor seemingly forced into withdrawing from the project just days later. Though Muralitharan is a person who used to elicit the wrath of Eelam Tamils on account of his long-standing support for Sinhala-Budddhist extremists, the incident became a cause célèbre not just in these quarters, but also across Tamil Nadu. The episode throws the limelight upon the growing sway of Tamil nationalism in Tamil Nadu and the deep solidarity with the Eelam struggle, particularly amongst the youth of the state. Tamil nationalism, across the global Tamil community, has considerable strength. Whilst this bodes well for the ideology in the political sphere, the episode also gave rise to certain questions from the counter-opposition.

It is asked, what is wrong with making an apolitical film that charts the growth of Muralitharan’s cricketing career? The problem lies centrally with Muralitharan himself. Over the years, he has gone on to give ringing endorsements to those that led the massacre of the very people to whom the film is intended to be peddled. It should have sounded crass to the makers. It would have been impossible the portray the man without his politics.

The Presidential Commission of Inquiry (PCOI) revealed that former Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena received several a call from State Intelligence Service Director Nilantha Jayawardena warning him that an attack was imminent, just minutes before bombs ripped through churches and hotels on the island, killing hundreds.

The PCOI revealed that Sirisena received a 63-second call in which Jayawardena had contacted Sirisena’s security official just 43 minutes before the attacks of 21 April 2019.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) and EQUAL GROUND has called on Sri Lankan authorities to end forced anal and vaginal examinations in trials against homosexuality.

The Sri Lankan government has responded to a landmark judgement from Britain’s Proscribed Organisations Appeal Commission, which found that the decision to keep the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) proscribed as a terrorist organisation was “flawed” and unlawful, by stating it will “continue to closely monitor the progress of the case”.

A statement from Sri Lanka’s foreign ministry in Colombo this morning, said that though the government “could not make direct representations”, it had “assisted the Government of the United Kingdom by providing relevant information with regard to continued terrorist activities”.