In legal and political literature, the term ‘dictatorship’ includes authoritarianism and is synonymous with traditional terms such as absolutism, absolute governments, despotism and tyranny. In political and constitutional legal theory, a dictatorship…
Around 100 young men from Navanthurai, a village in the Jaffna District, were detained in an operation conducted by the Sri Lanka Army around 1.15am on 23rd August 2011. The villagers were…
Image courtesy Amber Much of the recent discussion of the ‘Grease Yaka’ in the Sinhala and English language media or ‘Mystery Man’ as it is referred to in Tamil discourse has been…
The Women and Media Collective held a press conference last week to address the incidence of violence against women with regard to the ‘grease devil’ phenomenon. The Collective also stressed that it…
I just viewed a documentary produced recently by Al Jazeera titled ‘Civil war leaves Sri Lankan women vulnerable’. The film has left me deeply disturbed, shocked and ashamed particularly because as a…
Read Part I here. ### Basically the whole plethora and all variations in media, from print to electronic to the web, from Sinhala to Tamil and English including the “updates” via SMS…
Over the years, the claims of the Tamil people for justice, equalty and dignity have been rejected with a variety of specious arguments. It is not necessary to go into these exercises…
Image courtesy Amber Whispering campaigns in Sri Lanka are the most speedy and penetrating campaigns that product promoting advertisers have not been able to make use of. Often in Sri Lanka these…
The 9th of August was census night in Australia. The census form has three boxes relating to “Country of Birth,” one’s “language other than English at home” and “Ancestry”— all interesting formulations…
Editors note: Philip Revatha (Ray) Wijewardene (1924 – 2010) was an extraordinary Sri Lankan. Educated at two of the most prestigious universities in the world (Cambridgeand Harvard), he excelled in many different areas of…
(Deng Xiaoping) It is ironic, is it not, that those Western voices and Lankan liberals who believe that there is a democracy wave sweeping the world, that democracy is dying if not…
Fr. Jim Brown, a Catholic Priest from diocese of Jaffna in Northern Sri Lanka and his associate, Mr. Vimalathas, a father of five people, seem to be just two names and…
“” emotionally shares Gnanasundaram Kuganathan (59) while tears filled his eyes. The News Editor of Uthayan ~ Tamil language daily newspaper Gnanasundaram Kuganathan (59) was brutally assaulted by unknown men on 29th…
[Editors’ note: An edited version of this article appeared in the Daily Mirror today.] “The existing constitution is more than enough for us to live together. I don’t think there…
Mr. Pattani Razeek’s case is a rare instance where the body of a disappeared person has been found, based on information given by arrested suspects. The arrest of key suspects is itself…
