Monitor Memo

MAYILIDDY, Sri Lanka — S. Sritharan, a lawmaker representing the Ilankai Tamil Arasu Kachchi (ITAK), on Friday called on President Anura Kumara Dissanayake to immediately release military-held lands in Valikamam North, where displaced residents have been staging weekly protests demanding the return of their ancestral properties nearly 17 years after the end of Sri Lanka’s civil war. Mr. Sritharan made the appeal while addressing a black-flag demonstration that entered its sixth consecutive week

JAFFNA, Sri Lanka — Sri Lankan police questioned two members of a Tamil music troupe this week after performers sang a song associated with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam during a temple festival in northern Sri Lanka, according to police. The two performers, identified as Gokulan and Darwin, sons of the late Tamil singer S.G. Santhan, were summoned to the Kopay Police Station following the incident at a festival in Urumpirai, in Jaffna district. Police said the song performed during the

JAFFNA, Sri Lanka — Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam, the leader of the Tamil National People's Front and a member of Parliament, on Wednesday accused the Sri Lankan government of creating false expectations among displaced communities in the country's north, saying military officials had rejected several requests for the return of civilian-owned land during a closed-door meeting earlier this week. Mr. Gajendrakumar's remarks directly contradicted public statements by Fisheries Minister Ramalingam Cha

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Sri Lanka's Media Minister said Tuesday that future appointments to the top editorial position at the state-run Tamil daily Thinakaran would be made on the basis of qualifications, as the newspaper's management faces criticism over the interim appointment it made following the suspension of its Editor-in-Chief over alleged financial misconduct. The minister, Nalinda Jayatissa, made the remarks at a government media briefing held to announce Cabinet decisions, after journali

JAFFNA, Sri Lanka — Senior Sri Lankan defense officials traveled to the country's Northern Province on Tuesday to inspect lands that have remained under military control for years, in what security sources described as early steps in a process that could eventually return some of those parcels to their civilian owners — though the scope, timeline, and ultimate outcome of any releases remain unclear. The Deputy Minister of Defense and the Commander of the Army conducted field inspections across

KILINOCHCHI, Sri Lanka — A youth hospitalized after a deadly motorcycle crash that killed a 32-year-old mother in Sri Lanka's Northern Province has admitted to police that he was riding the motorcycle involved in the collision, after initially claiming he had only been traveling as a pillion passenger, police sources told Jaffna Monitor on Tuesday. The crash, which occurred Monday on the Uruthirapuram-Karadipokku road in Kilinochchi district, killed Kagitha Shanmugam, who was on her way to pick

KILINOCHCHI, Sri Lanka — A 32-year-old mother was killed Sunday when a motorcycle ridden by a youth, allegedly performing dangerous stunts on a public road, struck her motorcycle head-on in Kilinochchi district, in Sri Lanka's Northern Province, police said. The victim, identified as Kagitha Shanmugam, was riding from Uruthirapuram toward Karadipokku to pick up her 7-year-old daughter from school when the crash occurred on the road connecting the two towns. Witnesses described the impact as ho

JAFFNA, Sri Lanka — A prisoner sentenced to death in the high-profile 2015 murder of Pungudutivu schoolgirl Sivaloganathan Vithiya died by suicide inside the Jaffna Prison, prison authorities said Monday. The Department of Prisons said the inmate, Poobalasingham Jeyakumar, 46, was found hanging inside the prison on Monday morning. Authorities said an investigation into the death was underway. Jeyakumar was among seven men sentenced to death by the Jaffna High Court in 2017 over the rape and mu