Why is there a need to criminalise ‘enforced disappearances’? Sri Lanka has had a history of allegations of ‘enforced disappearances’, white van abductions etc. This is evidenced by the numerous commissions of…
On July 17, 2017, Deepam and her niece were subject to a bizarre and frightening experience. The family was grocery shopping at the up-scale Crescat Shopping Centre, in the heart of Colombo,…
Photo courtesy Post-Rajapaksa Sri Lanka suffers from a deadly absence. It has a democratic government, but no democratic opposition. Had Sri Lanka been a normal democracy – with a democratic government and…
Preliminary findings of the visit to Sri Lanka Colombo (14 July 2017), The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism, Mr. Ben…
Manoeuvring power relations and negotiating the language of legal discourse – these are central themes of “Contempt” a reading presented by Floating Space, to be held this Saturday (July 15th, 2017) at…
Featured image courtesy ConstitutionNet On Independence Day we had a Constitution framed primarily by a British academic, Sir (then Dr) Ivor Jennings in the mid-40s. In formulating this document he consulted Prime…
The words of a Muslim man I met on my visit to Aluthgama, two weeks after the violence broke out in 2014 rang hollow as I returned to Aluthgama a few weeks…
Fake news became a buzzword around the 2016 US Presidential election campaign. However, it’s something we have been grappling with in Sri Lanka for years. Fake news, is news created with the…
“We are aware of the great difference in carbon dioxide that is emitted from biological sources and carbon dioxide emitted from fossil sources. One has sequestered rates measured in thousands of years…
Photo courtesy Editors note: Read in conjunction with by the same author. Sri Lanka has entered another phase of political crisis. It is a three-fold crisis. The first is at the level…
Image courtesy Is the (‘good governance’) regime jointly led President Sirisena and Prime Minister Wickremasinghe slowly abandoning its political reform commitments made during the Presidential and Parliamentary elections of 2015? Are the…
Image courtesy The reply sent by the Bar Association of Sri Lanka [BASL] to Lakshan Dias is embarrassing. Faced with a belligerent Ministerial threat to disenroll him Dias had emailed Amal Randeniya,…
The initial shock at the response of a high ranking minister to comments made by a citizen on a recent talk show, soon shifted to the realisation of its seriousness. During the…
Dharga town is sleepy in the afternoon heat, especially at this time of year, the month of Ramadan. However, three years ago, in 2014, the streets were filled with smoke. has written…
Photograph courtesy 20th June is World Refugee Day. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates that 65.6 million people have been forcibly displaced globally. I have heard that close to one…
