Situation Analysis

The new Presidential Task Force is headed by Defence Ministry Secretary Major General (Retired) Kamal Gunaratne has been appointed to build a secure country, disciplined, virtuous and lawful society. The other 12 members are; Lieutenant General Shavendra Silva (Commander of the Sri Lanka Army), Vice Admiral Piyal de Silva (Commander of Sri Lanka Navy), Air Marshal […]

Image: Sri Lankan migrant workers have been sending billions to Sri Lanka to boost its foreign exchange resources. But now with the coronavirus pandemic, most of them want to come home. Till they are brought back, some of them are seen here sleeping on mattresses on the floor of a detention centre in Kuwait. Sri […]

The Sri Lankan government has declared its intention to rule without parliamentary oversight for the first time in the country’s modern history, potentially sparking a serious constitutional crisis. Elected in November and without a majority in parliament, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa seized his earliest opportunity to dissolve the legislature on 2 March and schedule a general […]

File photo of Sri Lankan migrant workers arriving home. This week, the Sri Lankan government stopped planned air flights to bring Sri Lankan migrant workers back home from the Middle East. The decision was made after it was discovered that many were infected with the coronavirus. On May 26, President Gotabhaya Rajapakse’s media division announced […]

Image: Army Commander visited violently anti-minority monk Amapitiye Suman on his trip to East. “We’ll leave behind an iron scrap And the hollow, mocking laugh of generations.” – Tadeusz Borowski (Wherever the earth) While the world struggles with the Wuhan-born COVID-19 pandemic, the Chinese government has taken a great leap towards Hong Kong. Beijing has […]

Image courtesy of independent.co.uk. Menstruation is stigmatized all over the world. Menstruation is a normal and healthy part of life for most women. Roughly half of the female population — around 26 percent of the global population[i] — are of reproductive age. Most women menstruate each month for about two to seven days. Yet, as normal […]

Most of the victims of horrific Easter Sunday bombings were Christian, majority killed inside three churches, and the bombers were Muslims. Immediately after the attacks, many Muslims unreservedly condemned the attacks and offered support and solidarity to mostly Christian survivors and families of victims. As churches across the country closed in the aftermath of the […]

PARL Statement on recent developments in Pottuvil Muhudu Maha Viharaya: Misuse of land acquisition laws and the military. The People’s Alliance for Right to Land (PARL) is deeply disturbed by the military intervention in civilian land administration in the Pottuvil Muhudu Maha Viharaya area in Ampara, and the reported moves to attempt legal acquisition of […]

Washington, D.C. – The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has issued an opinion finding the Government of Sri Lanka to be in contravention of its international human rights obligations for the four month pre-trial detention of author Shakthika Sathkumara. Responding to a petition filed by Freedom Now, the UN concluded that Sathkumara was detained for […]

The Covid 19 pandemic has for sure become a challenge for the regular administration to deal with, in any country. Sri Lanka is no exception. Since its emergence in Wuhan in December 2019, Chinese authorities took unusual steps to control the spread of the disease including a complete lock-down, indicating extra-ordinary measures in extra-ordinary circumstances.  […]

Image: Memorial stones for the Tamil victims of the war and dead LTTE career. July 2017, Mullivaikal.© sunanda deshapriya සුනන්ද දේශප්‍රිය Today we commemorate all those lives that we lost during the war, especially the tens of thousands of Tamil lives that were taken by horrific atrocities perpetrated during the final phase of the war […]

Image: ‘Our clinics for respiratory disease meant we could look out for community transmission’: KK Shailaja, health minister. by Laura Spinney./The Guardian. On 20 January, KK Shailaja phoned one of her medically trained deputies. She had read online about a dangerous new virus spreading in China. “Will it come to us?” she asked. “Definitely, Madam,” […]

Yamini Perera. “Life doesn’t battle you because you’re weak, it battles you because you’re strong. Growth takes place when you are challenged, not when you are comfortable” – Vex King We all experience difficult situations and unexpected hardships at some point in our lives. In fact, it is an indispensable part of life. Our chosen […]

Even as petitions are collected and hands are rightfully wrung for redress regarding the arrest and detention of attorney Hejaaz Hisbullah, it is timely to recall (despite a tad unkindly) that if the attempt to push through Sri Lanka’s draft Counter-Terror Act had succeeded at the height of the ‘yahapalanaya’ years, abuse of civil liberties […]

On 23 March, the Secretary to the Treasury released the Pre-Election Budgetary Position report as required by law. On 30 March, further to preliminary comments, I released a detailed statement on the report. The statement advised the President that this report – signed by the Treasury Secretary and Finance Minister – justified the presentation of […]

It is a modern morality tale about the dangers of misusing the military, of militarising civilian tasks, of expecting generals to handle pandemics. By 9th May, Sri Lanka had 847 officially acknowledged Covid-19 cases. Of these more than half were military personnel. The number of infected naval personnel alone tops 400. When Covid-19 pandemic gripped the […]

Image courtesy of Al Jazeera) Sri Lanka was ranked 127 of 180 countries in the World Press Freedom Index 2020. Countries that topped the list included Norway, Finland and Denmark where respective governments have ensured the safety of journalists while promoting a free press. In Denmark for example, when Swedish journalist Kim Wall was murdered […]

Gotabaya Rajapaksa, President of Sri Lanka at the Online Summit level Meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement Contact Group in response to COVID-19 on 4 May 2020. Text of his speech follows: Your Excellencies, Ayubowan! Good Evening! At the outset, I congratulate His Excellency Ilam Aliyev, President of Azerbaijan, the Chair of the Non Aligned Movement, […]

As of April 21, the coronavirus outbreak has infected more than 2·3 million people and taken 162 956 lives—35 884 in the USA, 24 114 in Italy, 20 852 in Spain, 20 233 in France, 16 509 in the UK, 5209 in Iran, 4642 in China—all underestimates most probably. Beyond these numbers are people, families, communities, societies that have been affected […]

The year 2019 was marred by the Easter Sunday Attacks.On April 21, the jihadist group National Thowheeth Jama’ath set off suicide bombs in three churches as well as hotels in Sri Lanka killing over 240 Christian worshippers. Following these bombings, large-scale retaliatory violence was unleashed against the Muslim communities in Sri Lanka.Organised violent mobs destroyed […]

The arrest and detention of attorney at law Hejaaz Hisbullah purportedly in connection with investigations relating to the Easter Sunday bombings of April 21, 2019 has had an unexpected fall out with 216 attorneys at law writing to the Bar Association of Sri Lanka (BASL) urging the BASL to refrain from intervening in the matter […]

(Image courtesy of www.dw.com) The coronavirus pandemic has impacted the lives of people in Sri Lanka and across the globe. The President and the Minister of Health have given leadership in responding to this grave public health crisis.  Their policy and programming initiatives have been supported by dedicated medical professionals and health workers in the […]

“Tackling a social calamity is not like fighting a war… Rather than muzzling the media and threatening dissenters with punitive measures (and remaining politically unchallenged), governance can be greatly helped by informed public discussion” – Amartya Sen (Listening as Governance) A year has gone by since the Easter Sunday massacre in Sri Lanka. Innocent blood […]

A group of 158 lawyers in a letter to Sri Lanka Bar Association has requested to intervene to ensure basic rights of detained Attorney at Law Hijaaz Hizbullah. The  letter follows: Dear Sirs, UNLAWFUL DETENTION AND LACK OF ACCESS TO LAWYERS FOR MR HEJAAZ HIZBULLAH, AAL We write with deep concern as Attorneys at Law […]

Sri Lankan police officers patrol a Muslim neighborhood after the Easter Sunday bombings, Colombo, April 26, 2019.(Image courtesy of HRW/© 2019 AP Photo) (New York) – Sri Lankan authorities should uphold due process rights and ensure that recently detained Muslim figures have proper access to lawyers, Human Rights Watch said today. The arrests, soon after the government […]

Sri Lanka: ICJ raises concerns about the arbitrary arrest and detention of lawyer Hejaaz Hizbullah; calls for repeal and replacement of the Prevention of Terrorism Act. APRIL 21, 2020. The ICJ called upon the Sri Lankan authorities to respect human rights in the conduct of their investigation of the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings, including ensuring […]

Image: Some FTZ workers were sent back to their homes buses arranged by the Government. On the 27th of March, Minister of Industrial Export and Investment Promotion and Minister of Tourism and Civil Aviation Prasanna Ranatunga instructed the Board of Investment (BOI), the country’s investment promotion agency, to close all Free Trade Zones (FTZs) in […]

Image courtesy of Ada Derana. “It’s the responsibility of the Government and the industry to protect the workers who carried the biggest weight of the industry so far with very low salaries and benefits. We sincerely hope that Government and industry will not run away from their responsibility by putting all the burden to the […]

Today marks the one-year anniversary of the Easter Sunday attacks, in which eight IS terrorists senselessly murdered 269 Catholic and Christian worshippers and tourists, shattering our collective sense of unity and togetherness. Families celebrating Christianity’s holiest day and tourists visiting our beautiful shores were massacred by those who claimed Islam only in name. Joe lost […]

Testing has become the main challenge for Sri Lanka. The government has consciously erected several roadblocks to minimise testing and obfuscate the spread of Covid-19 in Sri Lanka. Despite significant domestic testing capacity, a quota of no more than 212 patients a day are being tested for Covid-19, as at 11th April 2019. With the […]