The Sri Lankan president, Maithripala Sirisena on Thursday tweeted saying he had instructed the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission of Sri Lanka (TRCSL) to end the ban on accessing the social media website, Facebook. 

He said the decision came after the presidential secretary Austin Fernando had held discussions with Facebook officials. 

The Sri Lankan government has continued with its policy of granting interest free loans to Sri Lankan troops, despite struggling to repay record levels of debt.

^{Photograph: JDS}

The leader of the Bodu Bala Sena (BBS), a Sinhala Buddhist extremist group, was seen attending an event with Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena in Tokyo this week, just days after deadly anti-Muslim riots erupted on the island.

The Sri Lankan government accused Facebook of failing to act swiftly to curb hate speech by Sinhala Buddhist extremists on the social media platform, which it says stoked anti-Muslim riots on the island last week.

Harin Fernando, Sri Lanka’s telecommunications minister, said “this whole country could have been burning in hours”.

Eight schools still under Sri Lankan army occupation in the Valikamam North 'high security zone' should be released for resumption of educational activities, the Northern Provincial Council has said.

In a resolution brought by the council member P. Kajatheepan, the council called on the Sri Lankan government to secure the release of the schools from army occupation and hand over control to the NPC so that educational activities could resume.

The chairman of the Office of Missing Persons (OMP) on Tuesday announced the body was commencing its operations, adding that the OMP was much overdue. 

"The main purpose of the OMP is to address the suffering of the many thousands of families living in all parts of the country whose loved ones have gone missing or disappeared during multiple conflicts in Sri Lanka," the chairman said in a statement. 

Statement reproduced below: 

Families of the disappeared in Kilinochchi met with officials from the Swiss embassy on Tuesday, on their 387th day of protest. 

Holding photographs of their missing loved ones, families expressed their frustration at the government's failure to provide answers despite over one year of protests. 

Sri Lankan authorities arrested 23 Indian nationals today in Colombo, for allegedly violating their visas. 

The arrests were made in a morning raid by the Department of Immigration and Emigration. 

The arrested people, including 9 fortune tellers will be repatriated, the assistant controller, M G V Kariyawasam said. 

The Sri Lankan government is to end the restriction on Viber tonight, the Director General of Government Information Sudarshana Gunawardana said in a statement, amid rising pressure to end the social media ban. 

Yesterday the US ambassador to Colombo, Atul Keshap tweeted:

Sinhala doctors at a government hospital refused to treat Muslim victims that had been attacked by Sri Lankan security forces during riots in Kandy last week, reports JDS.

Abdul Saleel Mohamed Fazil, a local councillor, told JDS that commandos from Sri Lanka’s elite Special Task Force (STF) broke into his house and attacked him last week, as anti-Muslim violence flared in the area.

A senior Sri Lanka navy commander declared open a newly constructed office for a Buddhist vihara in Nainativu earlier this year, as Sri Lankan military involvement in consolidating Sinhala Buddhism in the North-East continues.

The Sri Lanka Campaign for Peace & Justice (SLC) has urged the international community to “move beyond mere rhetoric” on Sri Lanka, as Colombo falls behinds on commitments made in a United nations resolution more than two years ago.

The body of a former LTTE cadre who was reported missing on March 9th was found washed up on the coast of Vadamarachchi.

Fisherman and 38-year-old father of three, Thevathas Julio Alexan, of Kattaikkadu did not return home after work on the March 9. Although his boat and equipment washed ashore, locals were unable to find him out at sea.

His body was discovered on Tuesday morning.

Mr Alexan was a former member of the LTTE’s border force, locals said.

Tamils in Jaffna held a protest condemning the anti-Muslim violence in Kandy and across the island last week.