Situation Analysis

On May 21, 2009 Rajiv Naganathan had made one final call to his mother Sarojini. The 19 -year old Naganathan was abducted on September 17, 2008, one of 11 young boy victims at the centre of an abduction for ransom racket allegedly run by Sri Lanka Navy personnel and busted by the Criminal Investigation Department […]

Image: A slew of pro-democracy civil society organisations  has declared their support for New Democratic Front candidate and UNP Deputy Leader Sajith Premadasa at the forthcoming presidential elections. The National Movement for Social Justice and the Puravesi Balaya, the two best known pro-democracy social activist movements, announced to the news media yesterday that they wanted […]

Wimal Fernando. The two major parties, namely the SLPP and the UNF have announced Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Sajith Premadasa respectively as their presidential candidates. The third force JVP has announced Anura Kumara Dissanayake as their candidate. In addition there are several other candidates who either represent various other political parties or come as Independent candidates […]

By Meera Srinivasan. “For three years now, Sri Lanka’s tea estate workers have been agitating for a daily basic wage of LKR 1,000.” A tea estate worker in the Dambatenne tea plantation in Haputale, Uva Province. Often described as the backbone of the economy, close to 1.5 lakh tea estate workers have been agitating for fair […]

Full text of the petition filed by two Civil society activists, Gamini Viyangoda and Prof. Chandragupta Thenuwara, who are asking the Courts to quash the Dual Citizenship Certificate and NIC issued to Gotabaya as there is no file pertaining to these matters in the Department of Immigration or the Defense Ministry.    

TO THE ATTENTION OF HIS EXCELLENCY ANTONIO GUTERRES, SECRETARY GENERAL OF THE UNITED NATIONS. UN’s Participation is Vital to Establish Rule of Law and to Protect the Rights of Minorities in Sri-Lanka. Since 1948, we the minority people of Sri-Lanka have continuously been subjected to oppressions by the discriminatory ethnic policies of the governments that […]

Image: The illegal cremation of a Buddhinst monk, despite a court order not to cremate him on the temple land. In a hard hitting letter to president Sirisena, TNA leader R. Sampanthan  says that “failure to independently investigate what happened at Neeraviady Pillayar Temple in Chemmalai, Mullaitivu will only confirm and further encourage this growing trend of […]

Image: Sri Lankan Muslim women walk past a roadside shop selling metal plaque engraved with phrases from the Holy Quran in Colombo [File: Eranga Jayawardena/AP] A “harsh and dangerous” crackdown on Sri Lankan Muslims following deadly bombings on Easter Sunday poses a major threat to the Indian Ocean nation’s peace and security, a think-tank has warned. The assailants […]

Image; Tamil residents of Mullaitivu protest against BBS head Gnanasara, who led the illegal cremation . Northern Province Governor Dr. Suren Raghavan yesterday insisted that politicians should not create communal and religious tensions ahead of the presidential election, targeting the Northern voters and hindering their democratic rights. “As the Northern Province governor, I urge politicians not […]

Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka Hon. Dappula De Livera pC Attorney- General Attorney General’s Department Hulftsdorp Street Colombo. Hon. Attorney General, The Human Rishts Commission of Sri Lanka’s (HRCSL) analysis of the scope of section 3 of the ICCPR Act. No.55 of 2007 and attendant guidelines. The HRCSL is pleased to present herewith the Commission’s legal […]

Image: Writer Shasthika Sathkumara was arrested and kept in detention for more than 100 days for writing a short story. Case against him is pending.  Sri Lanka Human Rights Commission has issued guidelines on application of Hate Speech Law (s.3 of ICCPR Act) in a letter addressed to the Acting IGP, Sri Lanka. The HRCSL […]

Police have reported progress in their investigations into allegations Gotabaya Rajapaksa had failed to resume Sri Lankan citizenship he renounced in 2003 and raised serious doubts about his ability to stand at November’s presidential polls. The Criminal Investigations Department in a “B” report informed Colombo Chief magistrate Lanka Jayaratne of the outcome of a near […]

MP Anura Kumara Dissanayake was announced as the Presidential Candidate of the political coalition, National People’s Power- NPP (ජාතික ජන බලවේගය) on 18th August 2019. As the presidential candidate for the coalition, his speech included a general vision for the future of the country that took a liberal position in terms of state policy, governance […]

You have been called on to become world changing. This Friday, you will be joining millions of others around the world in the largest climate protests in history. Demanding the future that is your right to claim. Fighting against powerful foes to save everything. That future you’re fighting for? That’s what I’ve spent my whole life […]

Gotabaya Rajapaksa has unveiled his national strategy or vision as a presidential candidate with an authoritarian zeal. This is clear from his Viyathmaga speech. He should be commended however for his fairly clear expression of views and objectives. His definition of objective of government was the following at the outset: “The objective of any government […]

Democracy will not come Today, this year Not ever Through compromise and fear. I tire so of hearing people say, Let things take their course. Tomorrow is another day. I do not need my freedom when I’m dead. I cannot live on tomorrow’s bread. ‘Democracy’ Langston Hughes (1902 – 1967) ‘Actioning the Blueprint’ was the […]

Image: Waiting for the justice for disappeared relatives © Sunanda Deshapriya. Follow-up to the recommendations made by the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances in the report of its visit to Sri Lanka from 9 to 18 November 2015 (A/HRC/33/51/Add.2) 4. On 29 November 2018, the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances requested the Government of Sri […]

Image; Mauri Inoka has been waiting six years for justice held a solo protest on 2nd September 2019 at the GalleFace Green, Colombo. © Sunanda Deshapriya. Quintus Colombage,Colombo. Mauri Inoka Jayasinghe sits silently under the hot sun by the side of a main road in Colombo. It is Sept. 2 and this painful experience in […]

Introduction On the late evening of 20 February 2009, two diminutive aircrafts swiftly approached Sri Lanka’s capital with the intention of launching an attack against the military’s defense base in Colombo. The Zlin Z-143 airplanes were flown by ferocious Air Tigers; the air-wing of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), fueled with determination to […]

Meera Srinivasan. Jaffna district MP and Tamil National Alliance spokesman on the national unity government’s performance, the 13th Amendment, and India’s relations with Sri Lanka. In Sri Lanka’s presidential poll in 2015, the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), representing Tamils of the north and east, led its constituency in a crucial protest vote against then President […]

Image: A solider having a look at (temporary) the memorial wall for the disappeared at OMP on 31 August 2019. © Sunanda Deshapriya Office on Missing Persons (OMP) says the Government has failed to heed the recommendations made by them on Military and Police officers involved in enforced disappearances. According to the Chairperson of the […]

Image: Families of the disappeared gathered in front of UN, Colombo and handed over a memorandum. © Sunanda Deshapriya. August 30 was the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances. Despite Government figures indicating more than 65,000 complaints of disappearances in Sri Lanka, for most Sri Lankans, most media and the Government, it was just […]

Images of the Hindu Deity Krishna mistaken for Buddha images. By Arjuna Ranawana. Women’s activists are angry and exasperated by police detaining women wearing sarees or dresses with the images of Hindu Deities on them. Activists say there has been a rash of such incidents recently. Some of the images, particularly of the Hindu deity […]

Image: People of kokkuthoduvai, Kokkilai and karunatkerni villages held a campaign in Mullitivu town to stop encroaching their lands under the name of Mahaweli “L” Zone development. Nearly 300 farmers both men and women who have been deprived from their  agricultural lands and water resources peacefully marched to the Mullaitivu Government Agent”s office and handed over […]

The JVP deserves a chance, because it promises a credible third alternative to the hackneyed ethno-nationalist and neoliberal paradigm of the UNP-SLFP-SLPP cohort – Pic by Lasantha Kumara. The forthcoming Presidential Election is in many ways going to be an acid test for the two ethnic minorities, Tamils and Muslims, whose recent living experience had […]

The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) pointed fingers at the security forces over its failure to conclude investigations into some high-profile criminal cases, The Sunday Morning learnt. Reports on six high-profile investigations were handed over to the Attorney General’s (AG) Department last week. Meanwhile, following the updated report on investigations that had been submitted by the […]

  As the heir apparent to the House of Medamulana, now that the old squire of the estate had decided to untie his laces and hand the jackboots to his younger brother, Gotabaya Rajapaksa stayed in the shadowy wings till his brother had ended his valedictory speech where he heaped endless praise of psalms on […]

Attorneys for SLPP presidential hopeful Gotabaya Rajapaksa have sought, in a fresh filing in the California Central District Court, to dismiss a lawsuit brought against him alleging his culpability in the January 2009 torture and extrajudicial killing of Lasantha Wickrematunge. The new filing asserts, while denying the allegation that he had a hand in the […]

I wonder how many people remember ‘Always Breakdown.’ It was probably the first political satire TV series in Sri Lanka, long before ‘Kathura,’ ‘Ethuma,’ and ‘And Company.’ The political figures were all puppets: no one was spared, though the series, broadcast on TNL, singled out Chandrika Kumaratunga. Whatever the politics, it was an overnight sensation. […]

(24 August 2019, London) The appointment of Shavendra Silva (Silva) as the new Commander of the Sri Lankan army is a deeply troubling development. For the Tamil community, this signals the end of the road for reconciliation efforts from the Sri Lankan Government. For the international community and all those interested in human rights and […]