Fighting the War on Drugs the Wrong Way
This article is a summary of my report Broken System: Drug Control, Detention and Treatment of People who Use Drugs in Sri Lanka published by Harm Reduction International, which discusses both the…
Author: Ambika Satkunanathan
False Promises: The Myth of Security and the Prevention of Terrorism Act
For decades human rights activists have highlighted the draconian nature of the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA), which promises safety and security, yet in practice makes each citizen vulnerable to being arbitrarily…
The ‘Punishment Bureaucracy’ and the Normalization of Torture and Impunity
Justice Kulatunga During the period March 2020 to 24 June 2021 there were reports of six cases of encounter killings, twenty-seven cases of police violence, eight deaths in police custody, four deaths…
Romanticising Resilience: Why the Struggle to Survive Should not Become a Way of Life
Resilient is a word frequently used by human rights activists and the development sector, to describe persons affected by war and violence. In Sri Lanka, the mothers of the disappeared are…
Living in Hell: The Plight of Prisoners Held Under the PTA
The findings of the National Study of Prisons undertaken by the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka have been discussed in numerous articles since its publication in December 2020. The study was…
Not All Detainees Are Equal: Class, Ethnicity and the Prevention of Terrorism Act
Photo courtesy of InfoLanka Kanagasabai Thevathasan is a 64-year-old prisoner I met while I was at the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka. Twelve years have passed since he was arrested, more…
Evoking the Undead Tiger, the Eternal Bogeyman: The Consequences of Forgetting the Past
“An alleged former combatant who was “rehabilitated”. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) is the armed group that the Mahinda Rajapaksa and Gotabaya Rajapaksa government claim they defeated in May 2009.…
Precarity, Fear and the Death of Empathy
In our powerful yet fragile state, precarity defines our being. Precarious safety of dissenters and human rights defenders Precarious privacy invaded by drones Precarious plight of frontline workers Precarious lives of daily-wage…
Black July: The Unspoken and the Unspeakable
July. Referred to as Black July to mark the pogrom against Tamils in 1983 carried out by Sinhala mobs. Pogrom is a Russian word meaning ‘to wreak havoc, to demolish violently’, that…
Justice in the Time of a Pandemic
‘What physicians say about consumptive illness is applicable here: that at the beginning, such an illness is easy to cure but difficult to diagnose; but as time passes, not having been recognised…
‘What is represented and what is made invisible’: Women and Transitional Justice Processes in Sri Lanka
Photo via Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom During a recent conversation about campaigns to eliminate violence against women, and the participation and role of women working at the community level…
The rape and murder of Vidya: Do women really matter in Sri Lanka?
Editors note: Original image was taken from Icarus Wept. Rather than the issues noted in the article, or the incident of rape, many initial comments focussed on the use of the photo. Histrionics…
Post-war reconstruction and women: Has the Indian Housing Project become a debt trap?
Photo courtesy Red Cross Following the end of the armed conflict, people returned to their areas of origin in the conflict affected areas with limited, and in some cases no resources, to…
Heroes, Traitors and Tamil Politics: Lessons (Un) Learnt
Photo by AP Photo/Eranga Jayawardena via Yahoo Following the deferral of the presentation of the report of the UN Human Rights Council mandated investigation on Sri Lanka (IOSL) conducted by the UN Office…
The deprivation of liberty under national security laws: What can be done to provide immediate relief?
Image courtesy Sri Lanka Brief During the past fortnight there have been many calls for the immediate repeal of the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA). Given the fluid and complex political context,…