The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) has called on Sri Lanka’s President, Maithripala Sirisena, to retract his recent pronouncement that executions would resume in the country notwithstanding a moratorium on capital punishment that has lasted 43 years. The last execution was carried out in Sri Lanka in 1976. “Resuming executions would be an egregious violation […]

Image: The assaulted young man. 88 Chemmany Road, Nallur, Jaffna. 11 February 2019 His Excellency Suren Raghavan Governor, Northern Province. Your Excellency: The Police in Jaffna – Do we need them? In the absence of a Chief Minister and Provincial Representatives who are being very wrongfully denied us here in the Northern Province by not […]

By Harim Peiris. In January 2015, 6.2 million Sri Lankans voted for a new Sri Lanka, giving a mandate for far reaching reforms, even as a rainbow coalition of disparate opposition parties and civil society organizations backed a common candidate for the presidency and Maithripala Sirisena, who had defected from the Rajapaksa administration shortly before […]

Image: UK Ambassador to UN, Julian Braithwaite at the Human Rights Council organisational meeting yesterday. ( photo credit @JulianUNWTO) UK Statement:Human Rights Council organisational meeting held on 11 Feb 2019. I would like to refer to 4 initiatives which the UK will present as part of core groups. These are three resolutions and one joint statement. Firstly, […]

Lawyers for Democracy (LfD) is gravely concerned with the current constitutional impasse created due to the delay in appointing the President of the Court of Appeal. The process of appointment of judges set out in the Constitution must be respected to the letter and spirit of the Constitution. LfD notes that this delay sends a […]

It is no matter for jest when the President of a country publicly singles out national oversight institutions for ferocious censure. And without a doubt, it is even worse when that institution happens to be a national human rights institution. By the very nature of the work that it does and the statutory mandate on […]

Image: Post-war development centered on building infrastructure etc has failed. A study commissioned by the Central Bank of Sri Lanka urges a fresh approach to address post-war socio-economic challenges in the north by building on its existing regional capacity and resources. Authored by an independent committee and launched yesterday at the Jaffna Public Library Auditorium, ‘Economic Development […]

As Sri Lanka marks two years of operationalization of the Right to Information Act, No. 12 of 2016 on 3rd February 2019, the Right to Information Commission (RTIC) is pleased to announce the commencement of public sittings and the hearing of appeals in Sri Lanka’s provinces. On 19th of January 2019, the RTIC held its […]

Image: Remains of two UN peacekeepers killed in Mali arrive in Sri Lanka. His Excellency Maithripala Sirisena President of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka Presidential Residence Paget Road Colombo 07 Your Excellency, Re: His Excellency the President’s Statement in the Parliament about the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka. We have been made aware of […]

Speaker of House Karu Jayasuriya today informed Parliament that President Maithripala Sirisena’s statement in Parliament last evening, claiming that the Constitutional Council disregarded seniority when making appointments and dismissed 12 of the President’s recommendations is unsubstantiated. The Speaker making a special statement noted that the Constitutional Council in principle does not use seniority as a […]

Photo: An aerial shot of Colombo, Sri Lanka | Credit: Flickr, Creative Commons . After persistent allegations of mass atrocities committed during the long running civil war, a new Sri Lankan Government in 2015 pledged to the international community that it would establish an ambitious reform and transitional justice programme. Four years later, many victims in the country […]

Speaking at the parliament on 06th Feb. President Sirisena criticised the independent Human Rights Council of Sri Lanka and Constitutional Council. Further he indirectly threatened the human rights organitions not to critise his decision to implement death penalty. “I request Human Rights Organizations not to object to the move to implement the death penalty as […]

From the  Statement by the High Commissioner for Human Rights: Informal conversation with the President of the Human Rights Council and Members  (4 Feb 2019). Sri Lanka:  Despite some positive developments — such as the operationalization of the Office of Missing Persons — progress towards the transitional justice commitments made by the Government of Sri […]

Implemented in collaboration with the Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment and supported by the Embassy of Switzerland in Sri Lanka, the campaign aims to encourage all citizens to make informed decisions and follow correct procedures for foreign employment by seeking proper guidance through reliable sources;the 1989 hotline, SLBFE Offices and Development Officers of Foreign […]

Time is running out for the Sri Lankan authorities to deliver on its 2015 commitments to truth, justice, reparations and guarantees of non-recurrence, Amnesty International warned today in a new briefing. As the tenth anniversary of the end of Sri Lanka’s internal conflict looms in May, progress on UN Human Rights Council Resolution 30/1 has […]

Amidst the political turmoil that took place in late October 2018, it was wholly predictable that Sri Lanka’s Counter-Terrorism Bill approved by the Cabinet just the month before, quietly slipped past public scrutiny. At a time when the country’s constitutional order itself had been shaken to its (albeit not entirely steady) foundations, the Bill was […]

Mahinda Rajapaksa speaks to the media on November 11, 2018 in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Paula Bronstein / Getty. “In the name of God, go!” Rarely have these words of Oliver Cromwell been recycled with such farce and frequency as during Sri Lanka’s recent political crisis, not least by parliamentarians addressing rivals. As far as crises […]

BY MANJULA FERNANDO. In an interview with the Sunday Observer Dr.Suren Raghawan, the first ever Northern Province Tamil Governor, spells out his aims and objectives to serve the people in the region and build bridges not only to send the farming produce from the North over to the South, but bring together the youth of […]

The controversial ‘MiG Deal’ remains in the public spotlight as evidence continues to surface of the Rajapaksa Government’s complicity in engineering the dubious 2006 arms deal, and of scandalous attempts to hide the truth of the deal from the public. Sunday Times Defence Correspondent, Iqbal Athas, who first exposed the alleged scam in December 2006, […]