Features

Image: Convicted murderer was  close associate of Gotabhaya Rajapaksa. The Supreme Court’s affirming of the conviction of former parliamentarian Duminda Silva and three of his supporters for causing the death of politician Bharatha Lakshman Premachandra and others on 8th October 2011 reflect innovative judicial reasoning that has been ignored in typically sensationalist media coverage of […]

Image: A mother looking for her disappeared son’s name on a memorial panel- (c)Ishara S. Kodikara – AFP. Thank you, Mr. Presiding Member. I would like to express a few views, Sir, on this Office for Reparations Bill which has come up somewhat belatedly. But we are all happy that it has come up. In […]

Image: A Sri Lankan Tamil man holds a placard during a protest in Colombo on August 21, 2018, demanding the release of lands still occupied by the military.  © 2018 Eranga Jayawardena/AP Photo. Create Consultative Process to End Military Occupation. (New York) – The Sri Lankan government has yet to fully restore civilian ownership of land and property nearly […]

Sri Lanka’s political landscape is distinguished by an oddity not evidenced to that unnerving extent elsewhere in this region, even with all its considerable turbulence. kishali How the jaundiced citizen sees it This oddity is that despite an increasingly uncertain economic future as the rupee free falls to unfathomable depths and law and order falters […]

Media personnel in Sri Lanka have been facing numerous constraints from Law Enforcement authorities in two distinct ways — criminal defamation and contempt of Court. Reference to media is not confined to print and electronic. As a result of the reforms suggested in the Colombo Declaration 1998 with a view to achieve a free and […]

 On 14th September, eight Tamil detainees in the Anuradhapura prison, detained under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) since around 2009 commenced a fast. Their cases are yet to be concluded, with a major reason for delays being the non-attendance of officials from the Attorney General’s department who are prosecuting the cases. One of the […]

“Without liberty, the understanding would be to no purpose, and without understanding, liberty (if it could be) would signify nothing.” Locke (An Essay Concerning Human Understanding) The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) doesn’t always get it right. In May 2018, it predicted that Nawaz Sharif’s party, PML-N, will win Pakistani elections scheduled for July. That was […]

Executive Summary: The establishment of the Office on Missing Persons (OMP) marks a significant milestone in the efforts of the Government of Sri Lanka to address the issues of the missing and the disappeared. Established under the Office on Missing Persons (Establishment, Administration and Discharge of Functions) Act No. 14 of 2016 as an independent commission, the […]

5. Urgent Recommendations 40. A key objective of the OMP is to make recommendations to relevant authorities in order to reduce the number of incidents of missing persons and identify avenues of redress that take into account the best interest of the victims and the families. Specifically, the OMP is empowered to make recommendations with […]

(September 2 2018) A meeting held by the Kandy Regional Office of the Human Rights Commission in support of victims of torture on June 29, 2018 raised again concerns with regard to impunity of the police, and failures of the legal system. The programme at the meeting provided an opportunity for a woman torture victim […]

Amid cruelty and suffering, there are heroes, says Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, who steps down on September 1st. Aug 30th 2018. Winston Churchill famously claimed that of all human qualities, courage was the most esteemed, because it guaranteed all others. He was right. Courage—moral courage—is the companion of […]

(19 August, 2018) Political discussions in the country at present are largely dominated by questions around two themes: which individual will win the next presidential election and which political party will win the next parliamentary election. These are no doubt important questions, but there is a more serious political question about what will happen to Sri […]

The relationship between Sri Lanka’s military politics is a topic that gets occasional media attention. However, there is hardly any serious scholarly work on the subject, despite the fact that maintaining a framework of balance in civil-military relations during and after the civil war has surely been a major policy preoccupation among the country’s civilian […]

Image: President Jayewardene did not appeal to stop the violence and never made a apology. [Extracted from the Report of The Presidential Truth Commission on Ethnic Violence (1981-1984)] On the night of 23rd July, around 11.30 p.m. 13 soldiers on a routine patrolling in the North, travelling in a jeep and a truck came under […]

(Report of the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights while countering terrorism on his mission to Sri Lanka) A. Conclusions 59. In 2015, Sri Lanka seemed to have turned a corner. New elections brought to power a coalition government and with it the promise of change. Human Rights Council resolution 30/1, co-sponsored by Sri […]

by Tisaranee Gunasekara. “There is no Viyath Mawatha; it is just a word for a programme. Clearly this is a carrying forward of Mahinda Chintanaya…”   ~ Mahinda Rajapaksa (4.7.2018)[i] ( July 15, 2018, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) The news was sensational, yet it was downplayed. The chief incumbent of a temple in Ratnapura strangled a police […]

14th July, 2018 His Excellency Maithripala Sirisena The President Presidential Secretariat Colombo 01 Dear President Sirisena, IN SOLIDARITY WITH TAMIL FAMILIES OF THE DISAPPEARED PROTESTING FOR TRUTH AND JUSTICE IN THE NORTH AND EAST Enforced disappearance is one of the most horrific crimes known to humanity. For decades, the people of Sri Lanka have lived […]

(8 July, 2018/SO) There are two new developments in Sri Lanka’s contemporary politics which is getting crystalized and clearer these days. They are: (a) the consolidation of a hard right-wing alternative to a weak and shaky democratic regime option, and (b) the projection of an ex-military officer as the embodiment of the new right-wing agenda. […]

If there is one question that troubles many rights activists in Sri Lanka today, it is the current political instability within the coalition Government led by Ranil Wickremesinghe and Maithripala Sirisena government and their seeming inability to stop the Joint Opposition, unofficially spearheaded by the Rajapaksa family, from capturing power again. Both President Sirisena and […]

(24 June, 2018 Sunday Observer) Is Sri Lanka ready for an elected dictator? This is the latest question to enter the country’s current political debate. Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s preparations to contest the next presidential election in 2019 have already precipitated a potentially explosive controversy that can last weeks and months. An admirer of Gotabaya Rajapaksa has […]

Image courtesy of the Indian Times. ( 16 June 2018) “The arc of the universe may bend towards justice, but it doesn’t bend on its own.” Barrak Obama (Speech on the 50th Anniversary of the March on Washington) Violence has no place in the teachings of the Buddha. Yet when violence was unleashed on Kandy’s Muslims, in […]

The Rajapaksas, who ruled the roost in the country some three years ago are seen now luring the Muslims, especially by appearing at Ifthar events, the events organised by various Muslim and non-Muslim groups for the Muslims to break their Ramadan fast. Large gatherings of Ifthar, which should be meant for helping the poor to […]

USA and Western Nations Wont Allow Former Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa Become President of Sri Lanka;Outgoing US Ambassador Atul Keshap Bluntly Tells Ex-President Mahinda Rajapaksa. (12 June 2018) United States Ambassador to Sri Lanka Atul Keshap has reportedly shattered the political ambition of former defence secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa to become the next President of Sri […]

In retrospect, one of the greatest missed opportunities of the now doomed Sirisena-Wickremesinghe Unity Government was its failure to grab Sri Lanka’s legal system by its ears (metaphorically speaking), cleanse the Bench of corrupt and politically compromised judges against whom files were stacked up aplenty and demonstrate the power of criminal justice reforms for human […]

Among politically significant developments to have occurred during the past week or so, three stand out. They, not necessarily in the order of their importance, are: (a) Revelations made by MP Dayasiri Jayasekera about business donations to election funds of politicians, (b) the proposed 20th Amendment to the Constitution, and (c) Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s launching of […]

Image from @vikalpavoices. Travelling back to the final theatre of battle nine years later, where tens of thousands of civilians were trapped in the fighting, an activist reflects on the horrors of the final days of the war in 2009 and the inability of Sri Lankans in the north and south to connect to each other’s […]

Rajavarothiam Sampanthan. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We are debating the Policy Statement made by His Excellency President Maithripala Sirisena in Parliament on the 08th of this month. This Adjournment Motion has been requested by the Leader of the Joint Opposition, the Hon. Dinesh Gunawardena and has been seconded also by an Hon. Member of the […]

By I. Kaviratne  The pen, they say, is mightier than the sword, and in Sri Lanka, we have put that into question. As the world celebrates World Press Freedom Day, we take a moment to remember the journalists who were assassinated, forcefully disappeared, threatened and harassed in Sri Lanka. Journalist and cartoonist Prageeth Ekneligoda who […]

Image: Party leaders gives traditional Bulth Kola, as a sign of loyalty to  President Sirisena at SLFP May Day stage. ( Ada Derana photo) For a student of political institutions in Sri Lanka, things happening within political parties are great material for reflection and analysis. It appears that our political parties today are not what […]

The last twelve months, since World Press Freedom day 2017, has not been a good year for freedom of expression in Sri Lanka. The war ravaged North bore the brunt of repression, while there were also several incidents in other parts of the country. Victims included journalists, lawyers, activists, artists and in particular those speaking […]