The prospect of the Rajapaksa clan capturing a two-thirds majority in the upcoming Sri Lanka parliamentary elections has left many on the island fearing what the future may hold, reports The Economist this week.

“They could roll back constitutional changes brought in by the previous government that trimmed the president’s powers,” it said this week. 

The US Supreme Court heard a landmark case brought by a Tamil asylum seeker this month, which could have wide-reaching implications for Washington’s fast-tracked immigration and deportation processes.

Vijayakumar Thuraissigiam, a Tamil asylum seeker who reached the United States via a gruelling eight-month journey through South and Central America, was arrested just 25 yards north of the US-Mexican border and placed in expedited removal proceedings which deemed he could be deported to Sri Lanka. After years in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody, his challenge of a particularly arbitrary US immigration policy has now reached the highest court in the federal judiciary.

Britain’s former foreign secretary David Miliband tweeted that he wished the UK “could have done more” on Sri Lanka, as a fellow Labour parliamentarian visited the UN Human Rights Council this week. 

Labour MP Wes Streeting, highlighted the "widespread concerns" over Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa retracting from Colombo's commitments made at previous UN Human Rights Council sessions and emphasised the need to bring "people to justice for historic war crimes and atrocities committed during the Sri Lankan civil war." 

The family members of Tamil political prisoners, some of whom have been detained for years, rallied in Mannar last week, as they demanded the Sri Lankan government abolish the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) and release their relatives.

Ambika Satkunanathan has resigned from her post as the Commissioner of the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka (HRCSL) in an announcement she posted online, effective from Saturday morning

Satkunanathan, a lawyer and human rights advocate, submitted her resignation to Sri Lankan president Goatabaya Rajapaksa on the 26th February and officially resigned on the 7th March 2020. 

The Sri Lankan military announced it had set up “improvised quarantine centres” in the Eastern province, as it prepares to “quarantine foreigners and Sri Lankan expatriates arriving here” as part of measures to tackle transmission of the corona virus.

Shavendra Silva, the war crimes accused head of the army who is subject to US travel sanctions, travelled to the Polonnaruwa and Batticaloa districts on Monday morning, as he inspected the makeshift camps the military had constructed. 

The former commander of Sri Lanka’s army Daya Ratnayake has lashed out at the United Nations and staunchly brushed off reports of mass atrocities committed by Sri Lankan troops, calling them “completely baseless and fabricated”.

Ratnayake, the current chairman of Sri Lanka’s Ports Authority, told the Daily Mirror that he felt “betrayed” by the former regime as it co-sponsored a UN resolution on accountability. “Not only me but all soldiers feel betrayed,” he said. “People outside Sri Lanka think we are barbarians.”

Former Finance Minister, Ravi Karunanayake, has been issued an arrest warrant for bond fraud.

The judgement was delivered by Colombo Fort Chief Magistrate Ranga who claims that the former Finance Minister as well as former Central Bank Governor, Arjun Mahendran, were involved in fraud at a bond auction on 29 and 31 March 2016. The Chief Minister has ordered the arrest of both Karunanayake, Mahendran and 8 others.

Sri Lankan President, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, claimed yesterday during International Women’s Day that he would work to create an equal platform for women, free from violence, despite record levels of sexual violence.

<p>“Impunity for sexual and gender-based violence is high in Sri Lanka, despite repeated assurances by consecutive governments to address this issue,” Amnesty International wrote in a blog marking International Women’s Day.</p> <p>The rights group highlighted that just in the first 15 days of 2020, 142 cases of rape, and 42 cases of serious sexual abuse, and 54 child abuse cases were reported.</p>