Systemic Torture – The Dark Stain on Sri Lanka
When Sri Lanka was ruled by kings and queens, they used 32 types of torture to keep their subjects in line. These included being trampled by an elephant and being impaled on…
Author: Minoli de Soysa
Working for Peace and Pluralism: A Sisyphian Task
According to Greek legend, Sisyphus has the wretched task of rolling a huge boulder up a hill. Just as he gets to the top, the boulder comes tumbling down and Sisyphus begins…
Has the Animal Welfare Bill Fallen by the Wayside?
The images are harrowing and all too familiar – an electrocuted baby elephant, a caged dog, a leopard caught in a trap, a butchered dolphin; accounts of animals suffering due to neglect,…
Two Years On, They Are Still Asking For Answers
When new faces are seen at the Zion evangelical church in Batticaloa, it is customary for the pastor to welcome them. As a healing church, it is open to non-Christians. Two years…
Disabled Rights as Human Rights – Fighting for Recognition and Acceptance
Not so long ago, to be a person with disabilities meant stigma, exclusion and isolation because people are disabled by society and not just by their bodies. But as the number of…
Fear in the East: What Lies Beneath
They joke of being followed by intelligence officers and questioned on who visited them and what they spoke about but underneath lies a real fear of being intimidated, harassed and threatened when…
12 Years Later, the War Affected in the East Struggle On Without Land and Housing
Thennamaravadi is an isolated rural village some 65 kilometres north of Trincomalee on the Pulmoddai Road. The inhabitants rely mostly on farming and fishing to make a livelihood. They have some livestock…
Drowning in Debt, Women Farmers Take a Firm Stand
Trapped between unscrupulous microfinance companies and duplicitous governments, Sri Lanka’s rural women farmers are drowning in debt. Over 200 have committed suicide, some with their young children; families have been wrecked and…
On the Road to a Mine Free Sri Lanka
A protracted war leaves behind many legacies – grieving families, shattered limbs, destroyed homes, disrupted education, lost livelihoods and psychological trauma. One of the lesser known legacies is land blanketed with landmines…
The Gradual Renaissance of Arts and Crafts in the North
A destructive civil war, social upheaval, market forces and plastic have all played a part in the gradual erosion of Jaffna’s rich legacy of arts and crafts. A major dyeing and weaving…
Waiting for Godot: A Story of 600 Acres in Mullikulam
Three years ago, the villagers of Mullikulam in the Mannar district left behind their brick homes with water, toilets and beds to camp out in tents on the land they called home….
For Families of the Disappeared, the International Community is Their Last Hope
It is a small shed with cement brick walls and an asbestos roof facing a dusty street. Car horns blare and trucks rattle past. Outside on a weedy patch of grass three…
Braving Harsh Repression, Human Rights Defenders in the North Soldier On
The sentiments are unanimous. Under President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s presidency and government, Sri Lanka’s human rights defenders in the north are being threatened, harassed and intimidated on a scale never experienced before. Interviews…
Committing Ecocide: The Desecration of a Green and Pleasant Land
Whenever President Gotabaya Rajapaksa embarks on a “discussion with the villagers” visit, Sri Lanka’s environmental defenders shudder in anticipation of yet another verbal executive order resulting in the destruction of more trees,…
Repairing the Past Through Gendered Reparations
The transitional justice process in Sri Lanka has come to a grinding halt. Reconciliation between the majority and minority communities has never before seemed such a distant dream as the government goes…