Features

1. President Rajapaksa dissolved the Parliament on 2nd March 2020– six months before the due date, amidst the growing danger of COVID-19 pandemic. By this time, the uncertainty relating to the possibility of holding elections during the outbreak had already surfaced. However, the President chose to disregard the looming threat and called an election without […]

My article, ‘Necessity: Doctrine That Destroyed Pakistani Democracy’ published in The Island on 08 May has evoked interest in the subject and I have been asked for my views on its implications for Sri Lanka, including on whether it can be invoked in the present circumstances. For the benefit of readers who have not read […]

Image: Pakistani-military-ditators-Gen.Ayub-Khan-Gen.Yahya-Khan-Gen.Zia-ul-Haq-Gen.Pervez-Musharraf (NewsinAsia) The doctrine of necessity was first expounded in the 13th century by English jurist Bracton, who stated ‘that which is otherwise not lawful is made lawful by necessity’. Glanville Williams described the defence of necessity as involving ‘a choice of the lesser evil. ‘ The doctrine is recognized in criminal law. For […]

Image: Hijaaz Hizbulla, November 2018 at a protest against President Sirisena’s constitutional coup. On 16 April, I heard that my former classmate Hejaaz Hisbullah had been arrested by the CID. As I learnt more about the questionable circumstances of his arrest, I have been struck by how little these questions seem to matter in various […]

Image: The President could perhaps respond positively to the joint opposition statement offering ‘responsible cooperation’. The threefold crisis The threefold crisis that our country faces— public health, the constitutional, and political—is exacerbating day by day. In the latest development, a number of soldiers of the naval and special task forces of the Welisara and Seeduwa […]

(Image courtesy of www.dw.com) It is no coincidence that the increasingly not-so-insidious growth of Sri Lanka’s anti-democracy virus, first reflected on in these column spaces last month, has kept apace with the exponential rise of coronavirus infected individuals in the last ten days. As transparency diminishes, so does accountability. This is so in relation to […]

Image courtesy of slideplayer.com. Statement on the Arrest and Detention of Attorney-at-law Hejaaz Hizbullah. We are writing with deep concern about aspects of the arrest and detention of attorney-at-law Hejaaz Hizbullah. According to media reports on the habeas corpus application filed by Mr. Hizbullah’s father Naina Hizbullah, Mr. Hizbullah had received a phone call, purportedly, […]

Image (edited) courtesy of www.demdigest.org. The anti-democracy virus infecting law enforcement officials in Sri Lanka today appears to have proceeded belligerently to the point that an attorney-at-law was arrested this week in circumstances so outrageous that it has drawn the Bar Association of Sri Lanka (BASL) out of hibernation to express its ‘concern.’ Pointing out […]

Sri Lanka has been under an unofficial health emergency, since mid March 2020. State of emergency if declared it needs to be endorsed by the parliament within a month. As the parliament stands dissolved and parliamentary elections postponed, the government has declared the “Police Curfew” to impose Covid-19 related restrictions. Read as a PDF: SLB […]

Image courtesy of  the Economy Next/LAKRUWAN WANNIARACHCHI / AFP. By Asanga Welikala and Suren Fernando. When a grave crisis like the coronavirus pandemic occurs, citizens expect the Government to respond swiftly, effectively, and efficiently to protect the public and mitigate the consequences. For this, they also readily recognise that the Government will need greater powers […]

Image courtesy of Amnesty International. On March 26, 2020, President Gotabhaya Rajapaksa granted a presidential pardon and released convicted death row prisoner and mass murderer, former Army Staff Sergeant R. M. Sunil Rathnayake. While the country is on lockdown due to COVID-19, the President has seized this opportunity to deal a lethal blow to the […]

WHO Director-General’s opening remarks at the media briefing on COVID-19 – 16 March 2020 16 March 2020 Good afternoon everyone. In the past week, we have seen a rapid escalation of cases of COVID-19. More cases and deaths have now been reported in the rest of the world than in China. We have also seen […]

As of 7th March 2020, the global number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 has surpassed 100 000. As we mark this sombre moment, the World Health Organization (WHO) reminds all countries and communities that the spread of this virus can be significantly slowed or even reversed through the implementation of robust containment and control activities. […]

There is a dreadfully fractured logic in what the Government of Sri Lanka articulated before the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) as it withdrew from UNHRC Resolution 30/1 this week. This is playing to the nationalist gallery with an eye to the impending General Elections. It has disastrous consequences for the country, make no […]

Image: The 19th Amendment had nothing to do with the removal of an IGP. The escalating clash of words (hopefully, not arms) between the Attorney General (AG) and the acting Inspector General of Police (IGP) over the failure to ‘immediately’ file charges against an interdicted High Court judge on the basis of allegedly attempting to […]

Image: File photo of beautiful  Austrian countryside © Sunanda Deshapriya. ‘Come for Christmas, this invitation is in my heart’, Oma said on a day when I was wondering how to spend the December holidays. It was her grandson who explained to me to get off at the small railway station where she lives, climb the stairs, […]

Sri Lanka Brief. – Post Presidential Election Update No 03/16 December 2019. Special Presidential Commission of Inquiry Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa presented a cabinet paper in the first week of December for the establishment of a Special Presidential Commission of Inquiry (SPCOI), under the SPCOI Law (1978) to investigate government officials who had conducted ‘witch hunts’ […]

Image: Gotabaya Rajapaksa, Sri Lanka’s newly elected president, center, greeting supporters after his swearing-in ceremony in Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka, this month.Credit…Eranga Jayawardena/Associated Press. A Swiss Embassy employee is abducted and asked about asylum applications an.d investigators are banned from leaving just days after Gotabaya Rajapaksa is elected. By Maria Abi-Habib and Sameer Yasir. Fears of a potential crackdown on […]

Sri Lanka Brief Presidential Election Update No 02. Polarised vote The president elect Gotabaya Rajapaksa (GR) of SLPP and Sajith Premadasa (SP) of NDF respectively received 52.25% & 41.99 of the total votes polled in the presidential election held on 16 November 2019.  This numbers could be misleading. The result shows unprecedented level of polarisation […]

Sri Lanka’s eighth presidential election held last Sunday has produced an outcome that has surprised the winners, the losers as well as the observers. The most obvious, and arguably disquieting, and utterly unanticipated trend that became immediately visible is the re-sharpening of the majority-minority divide in the citizens’ electoral choices across the country. Mr Gotabhaya […]

FILE- In this May 23, 2008 file photo, Sri Lankan journalists shout slogans during a protest demanding the government investigate into abduction and assault of fellow journalist Keith Noyahr in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Forced to flee their country a decade ago to escape allegedly state-sponsored killer squads, Sri Lankan journalists living in exile doubt they’ll […]

Many of us were hoping for a new dawn in 2015. The hope for a ‘Yahapalanaya’ Government now leaves ashes in the mouth of many people. It is true they brought us back our freedom and strengthened independent institutions but they failed fundamentally in convincing people that democracy and freedom should be the pillars of […]

Image: UNP Prime Minister (Ranil Wickremesinghe) and his inner coterie had not robbed the Central Bank of Sri Lanka … As Sri Lanka’s Presidential election counts down to a tense culmination in two weeks, let us have the comfort of imagining in a parallel and more hopeful universe, that following the crushing defeat of the Rajapaksas […]

Image: Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna presidential candidate Gotabaya Rajapaksa discusses his manifesto with former President Mahinda Rajapaksa at its launch on Friday – Pic by Lahiru Harshana. A ‘Charter of Election Promises Honesty’ is necessary for all Given targets and promises are contradictory Free fertiliser would increase expenditure by Rs. 45 b VAT reduction from […]

Image: On the International Day of the Disappeared, 30 August, Colombo. © Sunanda Deshapriya. The OMP made such progress amidst an array of challenges including lack of cooperation from key state actors and continuous efforts to deny the rights of families of the missing and disappeared, says Saliya Pieris P. C. , Chairperson, Office on Missing Persons issuing a […]

This week, a citizen called into a popular (Sinhala) political programme on national television and asked the Minister being interviewed as to why it was that, one year following the 52-day old ‘coup’ in October 2018 installing former President Mahinda Rajapaksa as Prime Minister, no legal action had been taken against rowdy parliamentarians who smashed […]

  The California District Court of US has dismissed and denied allegations levelled against former defence secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa by Ahimsa Wickramatunga, the daughter of slain Sunday Leader Editor Lasantha Wickramatunga on the ground that it was a officially sanctioned killing and as defence secratary Gotabaya Rajapaksa has ” foreign official immunity”. We reproduce number […]

Image: The Sword of Damocles. With the presidential election campaign now well underway, it appears that the contest is between the two main candidates, Sajith Premadasa and Gotabaya Rajapaksa. In the absence of scientific polling in Sri Lanka, no credible voter sentiment analysis is available. Therefore we are all compelled to rely on speculation. Outside the […]

Basic Info: Eight Presidential Election of Sri Lanka will be held on 16th November 2019. Thirty-Five candidates have handed over their nominations. The Ballot paper will be 66 cm long while 15,992,096 voters are eligible to vote. More than 1M Sri Lankan migrant workers and around 20,000 suspects in remand prisons are not eligible to […]

Cartoon by @Nikshazz . Sri Lanka’s floating voters, struggling to find their feet in the unpromising pandemonium of November’s Presidential elections, can only flinch from ‘Pohottuwa’ Presidential candidate Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s promise at his inaugural campaign rally following nominations in Anuradhapura on Wednesday, that he would free all ‘war heroes’ held in custody on ‘bogus charges’ the day after he […]