Plainclothes Sri Lankan police officers arrived at the family home of exiled Tamil journalist Punniyamoorthy Sasikaran and subjected his elderly father to intense interrogation, recording his statement for more than an hour, as the harassment of Tamil media workers continued.

Sri Lanka’s president Anura Kumara Dissanayake allegedly transported bus loads of Sinhalese supporters to Jaffna yesterday, as he spoke of “uniting all Sri Lankans under one flag” to crowds at a rally in the North-East.

A group of nine Eelam Tamil refugees who had previously sought refuge in India were detained by the Sri Lankan Navy near Neduntheevu Island this week.

The group, comprising three men, three women, and three children from Trincomalee, Mannar, and Mullaitivu, had initially arrived in India via the Dhanushkodi coast having fled during Sri Lanka’s economic crisis between 2022 and 2023. They had been living in Tamil Nadu’s Mandapam camp where thousands of Eelam Tamil refugees remain.

As Tamils across the island gear up to vote in Sri Lanka’s parliamentary elections this week, candidates from across the array of Tamil parties have all tried to showcase their nationalist credentials to secure the Tamil vote.

The election, set to take place on November 14, has seen a surge in Tamil nominations as hundreds of individuals, some from newly formed Tamil political parties, are standing to become MPs.

Sri Lankan police officers in Jaffna assaulted several Tamil civilians in Chunnakam last night, including a woman and her 2-month-old baby, in an incident that has sparked outrage and demands for justice, amidst ongoing police brutality.

The United States Department of Justice has unsealed criminal charges against a man allegedly tasked by Iran with “surveilling and plotting to assassinate” Donald Trump before the presidential election, the indictment also reveals that the man had been tasked to plan a mass shooting to target Israeli tourists in Sri Lanka. 

On Thursday, the Chunakkam police force carried out a brutal and unlawful arrest of two innocent individuals, leaving the affected families in fear. This follows multiple acts of police brutality in the region.