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Sri Lanka’s President Mahinda Rajapakse led United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) government has been implementing a planned scheme to settle Sinhalese persons in the southern coastal areas of Mu’l’lik-ku’lam, Thampapa’l’li in Ko’ndaichchi and areas along Madu road in the Mannaar district. Lands belonging to Tamil villagers in these areas are being grabbed to settle Sinhalese […]

The Arab spring proves that Israel is not even the biggest issue in the Middle East – yet it gets all the attention If you want a glimpse of the anger and heartache caused by the Goldstone report into the Gaza conflict of 2008-9, you could do worse than take a trip to the National […]

H. M. G. S. Palihakkara, LLRC, When domestic processes fail to find solutions to internal problems, external forces find space to advocate or even impose solutions for their own political or strategic convenience. Sri Lanka is no exception. Leadership failures since independence by all governments and mainstream political parties contributed to externalizing the conflict from […]

By Srideep BiswasOn the model of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa, Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, at the end of three decades of civil war, appointed a Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) on May 15, 2010, to examine the events covering the period between February 21, 2002, and May 19, 2009, […]

By Kishali Pinto Jayawardene Very few thinking people in Sri Lanka will assert in all good conscience that the office of the Attorney General has been free from political controversy as a matter of historical fact. That last rider is important lest it should be thought by a misguided few that all the evil began […]

by Tisaranee Gunasekara “Though everyone bowed down before you,Saying virtue and wisdom lit your way,Striking gold medals in your honour,Glad to have survived another day,Do not feel safe…” Czeslaw Milosz (You who Wronged) Another emergency debate brought forth another apocryphal tale, to justify the unjustifiable. During the previous Emergency debate, the Prime Minister perorated portentously […]

The 2010 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices issued by the US State Department includes serious violations of human rights in Sri Lanka.  It states despite Lanka being a constitutional, multiparty republic President Mahinda Rajapaksa, and his family; two of the president’s brothers hold key executive branch posts as defense secretary and minister of economic […]

A motion presented by the JVP Member Wimal Piyatissa demanding the government to reveal names and places of detention of those persons detained on charges of taking part in LTTE activities during the war period and several other issues confronted by the people in the North was passed in the Eastern Provincial Councils on Wednesday. […]

Traditional seine-net beaches (Karaivalai-paadu) of Eezham Tamils in the coastal tracts of Mullaiththeevu district are grabbed and distributed among Sinhala fishermen from the south by a team of SL fisheries officials from the south. The excuse is that the local Tamil fishermen in the LTTE controlled areas did not register their seine-net stretches with the […]

    * TNA is not interested in separatism    * Proper devolution is healthy for Sri LankaThe UPFA government and the TNA are now put to face each other and both teams are engrossed in talks to find a solution to the day to day problems faced by the Tamils of North-East. Already four rounds of […]

By Rathindra KuruwitaThe government has allocated close to 1000 acres of land to several young United Peoples’ Freedom Alliance (UPFA) MPs to carry out various programmes, said Tamil National Alliance (TNA) MP A Vinayagamoorthy. This has been done in a bid to artificially create an alternative leadership to the TNA among the Tamils, he asserts. […]

The US annual report on human rights says that the government of Sri Lanka, a multi-party democracy, is dominated by the president’s family. “Two of the brothers hold key executive branch posts as defense secretary and minister of economic development, while a third brother is the speaker of parliament,” says the report. The elections in […]

By Sandun A. JayasekeraThe Tamil National Alliance (TNA) said yesterday it had told the government that considering the present security situation in the North and the recent Supreme Court ruling there was no longer a necessity for High Security Zones (HSZ). A TNA delegation comprising party leader R. Sampanthan, Mavai Senathirajah and Suresh Premchandran met […]

2010 Human Rights Report: Sri LankaBureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor2010 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices April 8, 2011 Sri Lanka is a constitutional, multiparty republic with a population estimated at 21 million. President Mahinda Rajapaksa, who was reelected to a second six-year term in January, and the parliament, which was elected in […]

    ‘If there was no evidence why did the AG file the charges?’The former Chief Justice (CJ) of Sri Lanka has questioned the legality of Attorney General’s (AG) withdrawal of murder and rape charges filed against government politicians. Sarath Nanda Silva, the former CJ who held the position for over ten years said that the […]

(New York, April 7, 2011) – The Sri Lankan government should account for everyone who was taken into custody at the end of Sri Lanka’s 26-year-long armed conflict in May 2009 and are feared to have been “disappeared,” Human Rights Watch said today. Despite numerous requests from families for information about their relatives, the authorities […]

Dr. P. Saravanamutthu Over the last so many weeks and still continuing, there have been a number of critical reports on the Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA)- the election monitoring body of which CPA serves as the Secretariat, the Centre for Monitoring Election Violence (MEV), in particular – the National Peace Council (NPC), and Transparency […]

By Sandun A. Jayasekera Minister of Youth Affairs and Skills Development Dulles Alahapperuma said it was regrettable and a matter of shame that the development of the construction industry has been stunted due to corruption and quality failure while other countries have shown tremendous progress in this sector. Addressing a ceremony held after laying the […]

Tamil National Alliance MP for Batticaloa, Pakiaselvam Ariyanethiran, Tuesday night told media that Sri Lankan forces were staging search operations in the three districts of Eastern Province to justify Colombo’s “need” to extend the Emergency in the island. The Sri Lanka Army with the SL Police on Tuesday launched major cordon and search operation simultaneously […]

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The United States said Tuesday that future cooperation with Sri Lanka depended on improvements in its human rights record and an accounting of the bloodshed at the end of the island’s civil war. With its strategic location and contributions to global peacekeeping, Sri Lanka “is poised to be a capable and willing […]

Devolution promised for N&E, disenfranchising South – Tissa Attanayakeby Zacki Jabbar The UNP is to institute legal action against a government move to convert five local bodies in Colombo into a Corporation.General Secretary of the UNP Tissa Attanayake told a news conference in Colombo yesterday, that they will move Court to ensure that the Mahinda […]

April 5th has significance to Sri Lanka due to the JVP uprising of 1971. The word uprising has been used for this event by way of an exaggeration. The exaggeration came mainly from the then-government and its propaganda machinery, supported also by UNP, who were the main opposition party, in unleashing unrestrained repression to suppress […]

Reaffirming India’s support for the Sri Lankan Tamils, Congress president and UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi on Tuesday said New Delhi would continue to press Colombo for constitutional amendments to ensure equal rights and status to ethnic minorities in the island nation. “In our neighbourhood, there is no issue closer to our heart than the Sri […]

The people from Jaffna face interference by the troops in their family affairs, as such the fear-psychosis which usually prevails among the Jaffna residents has not declined, Sri Lanka troops have been poking their noses into the family and social issues of the people of the Jaffna peninsula, said Father Paul Natchchaththiram to the muti […]

Urgent Amnesty International Action/ Student fears for safety after deaths threatsA Sri Lankan student who complained that his law school’s final exams were being managed unfairly was abducted, interrogated and threatened with death before being released. On the morning of 4 March law student D.M. Thushara Jayaratne was waiting at a bus stop in the […]

Sri Lanka Army (SLA) has instructed residents of Vellaveli in Batticaloa district to register with the village level officers (Grama Niladhari-GN), civil society sources in Batticaloa said. The SLA has directed the GN to submit all names of residents of the village in forms supplied to them. SLA has also directed the villagers to indicate […]

 The London based human rights watchdog Amnesty International has expressed concern over the lack of proper investigation into the abduction of a whistle blower.DM Thushara Jayaratne, a final year Law College student was abducted, interrogated and threatened with death on 04 March, according the rights watchdog. The Human Rights Commission in Sri Lanka (SLHRC) has […]

By Sandun A. Jayasekera Changes in legislations are on the cards whereby the Elections Commission would be vested with the authority to fix dates for elections and make re-poll compulsory in the event of an annulment, sources said. These are the major proposals among others made to the Parliamentary Select Committee on Electoral Reforms, (Committee) […]

Police in Sri Lanka say that they have arrested four people suspected on an attack following a the protest threat by a cabinet minister. Superintendent of Police Prishantha Jayakody told BBC Sandeshaya that the suspects were remanded until the 15th of March.”This was a clash between two groups and the situation is under control,” he […]

By Shamindra Ferdinando In the run-up to the imminent release of a controversial UN report on alleged ‘war crimes’ committed during Eelam War IV, particularly in the final phase of ground battles on the Vanni front, a section of Sri Lanka’s undergraduates belonging to the JVP is seeking UN intervention to restore democracy in the […]