UNHRC

BACKGROUND Sri Lanka is slowly emerging from the lockdown imposed to contain the COVID-19 outbreak and heading towards the General Elections that is scheduled to be held on the 2nd August. At this moment, three factors dominate Sri Lanka’s social and political landscape. The first is the militarization of government and governance. The second is […]

Image: a screenshot from the video of the High Commissioner’s opening remarks at HRC 44. Making  her opening remarks at the ongoing 44th session of the UNHRC rights commissioner Michelle Bachelet said that “I am dismayed by reports indicating that in many countries, members of minority communities and migrants face increasing stigmatisation – including, in […]

Image: Sri Lanka flag at UNHRC., Geneva. Making a statement at the 44th session of UNHRC  UK’s International Ambassador for Human Rights, Rita French, delivered this statement on behalf of Canada, Germany, North Macedonia, Montenegro and the UK, the Core Group on Sri Lanka and expressed their profound disappointment over Sri Lanka’s withdrawal from the […]

People’s Rights Group (PRG) Calls on the Government of Sri Lanka to Investigate and Prosecute Mr.Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan a.k.a Karuna Amman for war crimes and other Human Rights Abuses People’s Rights Group (PRG), a rights based advocacy and lobbying group, focusing on human rights violations in Sri Lanka, calls on the Government of Sri Lanka(GoSL) to seriously […]

Image: On the memorial wall,  International day for the disappeared 2019, Colombo, Sri Lanka. In a televised statement issued on 28 June 2020 Prime Minister Rajapaksa called for a strong mandate to defeat domestic and foreign conspirators and to overturn the Office for Missing Persons and national laws related to international Convention Against Enforced Disappearances. […]

They are not only crimes punishable under Penal Code of this country but also universal crimes against humanity. Murders of monks and surrendered policemen are not collateral damages but outright murders. It is incumbent and imperative duty of the law enforcement agencies to investigate and take action. Crimes of this nature do not get prescribed. […]

The Court of Appeal today issued an interim injunction order preventing the Permanent High Court Trial- at- Bar from hearing the case against Former Navy Commander Admiral Wasantha Karannagoda and 13 others. The Court ordered that the case will not be taken up until the writ petition filed by Karannagoda, challenging indictments served against him, […]

A. Conclusions 90. While Sri Lanka has made valuable democratic strides in the last five years, a prevailing apprehension exists among civil society, who fear there could be rollbacks on these gains in the future. Sri Lankans fear the dismantling or undermining of fragile yet important institutions that safeguard their democratic rights, and a shift […]

The voyage from Serendib to Sri Lanka through Ceylon continues to be an uninterrupted tale of opportunities lost, scorned and spurned. The brutal end to the quarter-century war with the Tamil Tiger separatists in 2009 brought an unprecedented opportunity for the government to heal the Sinhala–Tamil ethnic divide. But now a new front is opening, one against Sri Lanka’s […]

“From now until the elections, we will not know when, and where, and how the fireball will fall on us, and what the nature of that fireball will be.” Arundathi Roy (Election Season in a Dangerous Democracy – The New York Review of Books – 3.9.2018) The Eastern province is the most ethno-religiously pluralist slice of […]

Image: Families of Sri Lanka’s missing thousands fear the government is aiming to curb investigations into unsolved civil war disappearances. (COLOMBO/thenewhumanitarian) Rights groups are warning of a crackdown on dissent and rising authoritarianism in Sri Lanka, raising fears for the future of long-stalled civil war reconciliation efforts. Since President Gotabaya Rajapaksa took office after November elections, […]

Sri Lanka Brief Up Date/ 03 June 2020 Rights of the migrant workers in the Middle East during the pandemic 1. The estimated number of overseas Sri Lankan workers is 1.5 million and 1.2 million of these are in the Middle East. The majority of the 1.2 million Sri Lankan workers in the Middle East […]

Image courtesy of “Time” GENEVA (3 June 2020) – UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet expressed alarm at the clampdown on freedom of expression in parts of the Asia-Pacific during the COVID-19 crisis, saying any actions taken to stop the spread of false information must be proportionate. Many countries in the region already […]

Executive Summary. This report [by INFORM, Colombo,Sri Lanka] records 95 incidents that had been reported during the 90 days period. The average number of incidents per day reported prior to the covid-19 curfew is slightly higher than the number of incidents reported during the curfew. There were a high number of incidents related to legal, […]

Four Special Rapporteurs of the United Nations have recommended Sri Lanka government to give attention to the existing cultural and religious sensitivity or traditions in the country in the MoH Guideline on burial of the Covid-19 dead. “Article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) protects everyone’s right to freedom of […]

File photo: Number of prisoners were released under Presidential pardon for the National Independence Day, 2020. Making an appeal on behalf of persons detained under the Prevention of Terrorism Act the Committee for Protecting the Rights of the  Prisoners, has requested the Attorney General to include them also in the in schemes for bail and […]

COVID-19 pandemic – Informal briefing to the Human Rights Council. Statement by Michelle Bachelet, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, 9 April 2020 Indeed this is an important meeting, at a time that none of us may ever forget. The COVID-19 pandemic is generating suffering and damage in every region. It poses a far-reaching threat to […]

H.E. Gotabaya Rajapaksa President of the Republic of Sri Lanka Presidential Secretariat Colombo 1 Your Excellency, Granting of a Presidential Pardon to Former Army Corporal Sunil Ratnayake The Human Rights Commissions of Sri Lanka expresses it deep concern on the reported grant of a Presidential Pardon to Corporal Sunil Ratnayake who was convicted of eight […]

Condemning the pardoning former army Sergeant Sunil Rathnayake by president Rajapaksa, the Adayaalam Centre for Policy Research says that   “the pardon of Ratnayake in the context of  highly militarised environment combined with the unconditional respect and admiration that the military enjoys from the majority Sinhala Buddhist community in Sri Lanka is simply President Rajapaksa consolidating […]

The grant of presidential pardon, on Thursday, to a Sri Lankan soldier on death row for murdering eight Tamil villagers has sparked justified outrage among those who have been demanding justice from the state for past crimes. Far from helping the cause of accountability for war-time atrocities, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has gone the other way […]

Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Spokesperson and former MP, M.A.Sumanthiran, has reacted sharply to the Presidential pardon given on Thursday to Sri Lankan Army Sergeant R M Sunil Rathnayake, who was sentenced to death for killing in cold blood, eight Tamil captives including a child at Mirusuvil in Tamil-speaking North Lanka in 2000. Sumanthiran pointed out […]

Former Minister of Foreign Affairs UNP MP Mangala Samaraweera asserted that Sri Lanka’s withdrawal from the co-sponsorship of the UN Human Right Council (UNHRC) Resolution had no impact on the Resolution itself and the other countries that co-sponsored it would take it forward even more “vigorously and vehemently”. Below are excerpts of his interview with […]

Ahmed Shaheed, Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief of the United Nations Human Rights Council, presented a report1 to the Human Rights Council on 24 February, based on his visit to Sri Lanka at the invitation of the Government of Sri Lanka from 15 to 26 August 2019. The report was a detailed […]

In its statement to UN Human Rights Council on the High Commissioner’s Report,  Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka emphasises that the weakening of the relevant provisions of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution in strengthening independent institutions will seriously hamper checks and balances and protection of people’s rights under the Rule of Law. Sri […]

In a meeting with the Netherlands Ambassador Ms. Gonggrijp, Mr. Sampanthan Leader of the Tamil National Alliance has pointed out that “The UNHRC resolution was based on promoting reconciliation accountability and human rights in Sri Lanka. If we are to achieve lasting peace in this country, all three aspects must be addressed”. The Ambassador has […]

The director of Vavuniya-based Thinappuyal newspaper, Sakthivelpillai Prakash and his wife alongside another editor, were summoned by Sri Lanka’s Terrorism Investigation Department (TID) on Monday, following the paper’s coverage of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. The latest incident of journalist intimidation comes as the 43rd session of the Council is currently underway, where Sri […]

Image: Families of the disappeared writing names of the missing loved ones on a memorial wall. Sri Lanka does not yet have a figure regarding the total number of persons that have disappeared, says OMP. Issuing a statement on the Second Anniversary of the establishment of the Office on Missing Persons it says that “The […]

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 […]

From the Report of the Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief on Sri Lanka. The culture of impunity in Sri Lanka has been repeatedly pointed out as one of the main reasons for which religious extremism and hate speech thrive in the country, undermining the rule of law and human rights. Many complained […]

Former Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera has said that the decision to co-sponsor Geneva Resolution 30/1 was taken by the yahapalana government under the leadership of then President Maithripala Sirisena. Samaraweera, in a statement issued on withdrawal from Resolution 30/1 and subsequent resolutions extending its mandate in the UN Human Rights Council, has said: “At a […]