Families of the disappeared protested outside the Jaffna office of the paramilitary organisation EPDP on Thursday, calling for the arrest of its leader, current Sri Lankan cabinet minister Douglas Devananda.

Protesters decried a recent assault on one of their representatives by the paramilitary members and also held placards and chanted slogans highlighting Devananda’s role in abductions and disappearances during and after the armed conflict.

The Sri Lankan military “are trying to destroy evidence and intimidate the witnesses" said the wife of a disappeared journalist, as nine Sri Lankan soldiers face charges over his abduction.

Sandya Eknaligoda has been trying to seek justice for her husband Prageeth’s abduction for the past ten years. He was abducted in 2010 during Mahinda Rajapaksa’s presidency, after he had looked into corruption that took place during the regime. The cartoonist was also investigating the use of chemical weapons by the army in the North-East during the armed conflict.

During the Rajapaksa regime, dozens of journalists and media workers were killed, the vast majority of them Tamil.

Sri Lanka’s Terrorism Investigation Division (TID) has launched an investigation into the use of a local authority owned water tanker to water the streets of Nallur at the end week-long memorial events to Lt Col Thileepan.

The tributes to Thileepan, a political wing leader of the LTTE who fasted unto death in 1987, were carried out at the destroyed and rehabilitated monument erected in his memory in Nallur, near the original site of his hunger strike.

On this day 14 years ago, five Tamil students were summarily executed by Sri Lanka's Special Task Force, whilst they spent an afternoon on the beach in Trincomalee.

To date no one has been held accountable for the murder.

The case – known as the 'Trinco 5' – remains one of the highest profile killings in Sri Lanka to receive international attention, listed in 2014 by the then UN High Commissioner for Human Rights' report on the island as one of four ‘emblematic cases’ of the government's failure to ensure accountability and having been raised repeatedly in international forums.

<p>An attempted attack on UPFA MP K Kader Masthan has reportedly left the parliamentarian’s bodyguard hospitalised with injuries to his arm.</p> <p>The alleged attack happened on Sunday night when the MP was travelling towards Vavuniya town and his vehicle stopped in Pavatkulam for a member of his team to alight.</p> <p>Masthan’s vehicle was reportedly set upon by a group wielding swords. The MP’s bodyguard sustained a wound to his arm when trying to block the attackers.</p> <p>The attackers reportedly escaped, and the injured bodyguard was admitted to Vavuniya general hospital.</p>

<p>The new year marks the imminent requirement on Gotabaya’s government to pay back 875 billion Sri Lanka rupees of foreign debt due October 2020.&nbsp;</p> <p>Colombo remains heavily burdened with foreign debt, with the Chinese, in particular, having invested billions in major infrastructure projects ranging from power stations to ports. And as Sri Lanka’s economic crisis worsened, the island was forced to hand over control of Hambantota Port in a debt-for-equity swap with Beijing in 2017.</p>

Sri Lankan Army Commander Lieutenant General Shavendra Silva has been appointed as the acting Chief of Defence staff by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, effective from 1^st  January 2020.

He replaces Admiral Ravindra C Gunaratne, the former Chief of Defence Staff who retired from service on 31^st  December 2019.

<p>Dr Kumaravadivel Guruparan filed a Fundamental Rights Petition in the Supreme Court last week, challenging the decision of the University Grants Commission and University of Jaffna to bar him from legal practice.</p> <p>The senior lecturer of law at Jaffna University and prominent civil society representative was&nbsp;barred from engaging in private practice following pressure from the Sri Lankan military, after he took up a public interest habeas corpus case into the 1996 disappearance of more than two dozen Tamil youth.</p>

An assault on a civil society representative by paramilitary members during a protest by families of the disappeared has caused outrage in the North-East and drawn condemnation from Tamil politicians.

Coordinator of Vavuniya's citizen committee K Rajkumar was attacked while families of the disappeared protested against paramilitary leader and current cabinet minister Douglas Devananda as he was due to appear at a meeting about the disappeared on Monday.