United National Party (UNP) parliamentarian Ranjan Ramanayake has been released on bail after having been arrested by Sri Lankan police, for allegedly not having renewed the license of a weapon that had been provided by the government. 

Ramanayake’s arrest makes him the third opposition leader to have been detained since Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s presidency began in November last year. 

The opposition parliamentarian said that the police had raided his house searching for drugs and instead left with files related to the murder of Wasim Thajudeen. 

S. Mahendran

Prison Number Y-13139 “G” Ward,

New Magazine Prison,

Borella Colombo-09.

September 16, 2007

Brother, even when I was 17, when I used to eat breakfast, I made rice balls out of the old rice, curd, sugar, salt and banana.

Brother, when the army caught me, I was only 17 years old. I’ve been in prison for 14 years now.

How many people have come here and gone? Nothing at all has changed.

EU Ambassadors met with Sri Lanka’s President, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, to discuss economic and political development in Sri Lanka; where, Gotabaya rejected the possibility of devolving police control to the provincial councils.

The meeting was headed by Denis Chaibi, the Ambassador of the EU for Sri Lanka, and included the Ambassador for Netherlands, Tanja Gonggrijp, Deputy Head of Mission of the Embassy of Italy Allegra Baistrochchi, Ambassador of Romania Dr. Victor Chiujdea, Ambassador of France Eric Lavertu and Ambassador of Germany Jörn Rohde.

Detainees in Batticaloa Prison protested following the death of a fellow prisoner on Sunday.

Jamaldeen Mohamadu Najeem, a 28-year-old who was serving a prison sentence for failure to pay maintenance died on Sunday morning at Batticaloa Hospital, where he had been taken after contracting a fever.

Over two dozen detainees climbed the roof of the prison his and clamoured for an investigation into the mysterious circumstances around the young prisoner’s death.

Sri Lanka’s police headquarters have launched a ‘special investigation’ into the departure of top organised crime investigator Nishantha Silva from the island following the election of Gotabaya Rajapaksa.

Silva, who fled to Switzerland in November 2019, had been credited with pushing through several high-profile cases implicating military and state personnel, including the abduction of 11 youths, with 13 navy personnel arrested in connection with the case and senior navy officials pending investigation. He had also been investigating the death of a Tamil detainee in police custody, as well as the assassination of journalist Lasantha Wickrematunge.

Several weeks into Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s presidency, journalists on the island are coming under increasing threat. Whilst the island has always been a dangerous place for the press, and for Tamil journalists in particular, over the last month there has been a worrying rise in intimidation, harassment and even physical assaults of media workers, alongside political activists and human rights defenders.

The longest serving Tamil political prisoner who was arrested at the age of 17 in 1993 has died.

Sellapillai Mahendran was arrested during a round-up in Batticaloa on September 27, 1993. Two years later, he was sentenced to 70 years in prison and life imprisonment based on a confession produced following a month of torture in detention. After appealing the conviction at Sri Lanka's Supreme Court, the 70-year sentence was reduced to 10 years but the life sentence was upheld.

While some sources claim that his 1995 conviction was in connection with the alleged killing of 600 police officers in the East - an incident which took place three years prior when Mahendran was aged just 14 - his family said that they were never told the reason for his conviction.

Sinamkol, a film shot entirely in parts of Tamil Eelam has widely received rave reviews and is currently playing at a number of screens.

Ranjith Joseph, the director described the film as one that importantly “talks about the economic and cultural struggles the Tamils face in Sri Lanka, post the war”. The cast and the production team reflect the range of Eelam Tamils across the globe with cast and crew sourced from the diaspora community and locally. 

The film received praise from numerous members of the film industry. 

Tamil Eelam FA will be among the 16 teams competing in the 2020 Confederation of Independent Football Associations (CONIFA) World Football Cup, after an impressing double victory in the qualifiers powered the team through to the tournament. 

The team played two CONIFA World Football 2020 qualifiers in December against East Turkistan and West Papua. Victory in both games saw Tamil Eelam gain enough points to qualify for the 2020 World Football Cup taking place between 30 May - 7 June 2020 in Skopje, Republic of North Macedonia.

Iran’s Ambassador to Sri Lanka Mohammad Zaeri Amirani met with Sri Lanka’s Defence Secretary Kamal Gunaratne at his office, to discuss possible training opportunities that could be offered to Sri Lankan Police and Armed Forces personnel in Iran, on Thursday.