Women in Sri Lanka face serious barriers to political representation and the country ranks among the lowest in the world for the percentage of women in national legislatures. After the parliamentary elections…
Firi Rahman grew up with parrots so he is familiar with their looks and understands their habits. On a visit to Paris, it seemed as if the parrots from Colombo had followed…
It has been 16 years since the UN General Assembly adopted the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) in September 2007. However, Sri Lanka has not formulated a legal or…
In 2023 Sri Lanka was struggling to come out of the economic meltdown with aid from the IMF, which required many austerity measures that impacted severely much of the population. People had…
Brief Successive government have promised that none of Sri Lanka’s “war heroes” would be tried for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity. Former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa went as far as pardoning…
The next two years will be crucial for Sri Lanka; a presidential election will be held in the latter part of 2024 and parliamentary elections will be held in 2025. If the…
It was one of the rare cases of justice being served – Sergeant Sunil Rathnayake was tried and convicted for the murder of eight civilians in Mirusuvil in Jaffna in 2000. Witnesses…
The CIVICUS Monitor, an organization that tracks the status of civic space around the world, has downgraded Sri Lanka’s civic space in 2023 to repressed from obstructed due to authorities attacking protesters,…
Nallasera Nallamma was cooking lunch when the soldiers stormed into her remote village of Mylanthanai, one hour northwest of Batticaloa town, on August 9, 1992. They rounded up the villagers, separating the…
For most of his life, 35 year old artist Kanesh Thabendran has lived in a war zone where every day was a struggle for survival amid exploding bombs and falling artillery shells….
The government’s proposed National Unity and Reconciliation Commission (NURC) has come in for criticism from a leading international human rights organisation, which also condemns the ongoing persecution of victims’ families, human rights…
Between August 1989 and January 1990, 48 school children in Embilipitiya were abducted and murdered. Several of their bodies were found in a mass grave nearby. Some of the perpetrators, including military…
Sarath Chandrajeewa’s first impressions of Jaffna came from his father’s stories about the north where he was stationed as a police officer. His father spoke of the friendliness of Jaffna people, their…
An expert in Transitional Justice, accountability and reconciliation, former Commissioner of the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka, Ambika Satkunanathan shares a powerful story of loss and perseverance during Black July and its impact…
Since 1997, barring 2005, artist, sculptor, teacher and activist Professor Chandraguptha Thenuwara has been commemorating the horrific events of July 1983 in a series of exhibitions designed to make sure that people…
