<p>Responding to the proposed 20th Amendment, which seeks to centralise power within the presidency and to weaken checks and balances, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference expressed grave concern stating that it would not strengthen Sri Lankan democracy.</p> <p>Mahinda Rajapaksa has maintained that the 20th Amendment is necessary to bring forwards a strong government and has attacked the 19th Amendment, claiming that it was “brought in to take personal revenge” upon him and that it made the constitution “a joke”.</p>

An outburst of opposition has been growing across social media after Kollywood actor Vijay Sethupathi announced last week on Twitter that he would be playing the role of Muthiah Muralitharan in the Sri Lankan cricketer’s biopic, with users worldwide urging the actor to drop the project.

_{Sarath Weerasekara}

Sri Lankan Minister Sarath Weerasekara lashed out at India last week, claiming the country has no moral right to interfere in Sri Lanka's "internal affairs" after Prime Minister Narendra Modi called for the implementation of the 13th Amendment, which devolves a range of powers to the Tamil North-East. 

On 24 September, 358 acres of land from Panikkanvayal to Thennamaravadi were confiscated by the Archaeological Department, including fields belonging to the Tamil people.

The community in Thennamaravadi have stated that the Department of Archaeology has acquired the land in their village at the request of a Buddhist monk, Thilakawansa Nayaka, from the surrounding Arisimale area. The archaeology department have arranged boundary stones midway of the land to commemorate the site.

A court in Vavuniya has granted bail to the administrators of the ancient Hindu Vedukkunari hill temple after public worship was banned by Sri Lanka police claiming that the area belonged to the archaeological department.

Police implementing the ban had summoned a priest of the temple for questioning and warned that if he performed prayers, a case would be filed against him. The police had insisted that temple administrators be detained on the basis that it is an archaeological matter.

A warranted officer of the Army Intelligence Division, Kanishka Gunaratne, claimed that due to the action of key officials within the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) during the previous administration, state intelligence operations were “paralyzed”.

Sri Lankan army and police officers were deployed across Mannar as the district was forced to go into a military-enforced lockdown following a sharp rise in COVID-19 cases in the area.

The order was sanctioned on Monday after 103 people in Mannar were identified as having contracted the virus directly and over 150 identified and quarantined for their contacts with COVID-19 carriers.

The families of the disappeared in Vavuniya condemned the assault of the two Tamil Guardian correspondents in Mullaitivu on Monday and insisted that “media repression will kill democracy”.  

On the 1334^th day of continuous protests in Vavuniya yesterday, the secretary of the Vavuniya families of the disappeared stated;

 

Speaking from their hospital beds in Mullaitivu, two Tamil Guardian correspondents who were attacked whilst working on a story on illegal deforestation have recounted the assault and spoken out about their fears of further attacks.

Shanmugam Thavaseelan and Kanapathipillai Kumanan were both working on a story on illegal deforestation that had been taking place in Mullaitivu, when they were assaulted on Monday. 

On Monday the 12th of October, two Tamil Guardian correspondents were assaulted and hospitalised in a brutal attack in Mullaitivu.

Our two colleagues, Kanapathipillai Kumanan and Shanmugan Thavaseelan, were working on an important story on illegal deforestation when they were set upon and attacked with iron rods. The vicious attack left them both with injuries that required hospital treatment. Both journalists had the evidence they had gathered deleted and money stolen.

This assault of our colleagues is yet another blatant attack on the freedom of the Tamil press. It remains completely unacceptable and must be urgently addressed.