Independence Square Vigil: Speech by Dr. Radhika Coomaraswamy
Photo courtesy AP / Manish Swarup via For people of my generation, as Sharika Thiranagama wrote in her recent article, news like the Easter Sunday blasts does not initiate a new fear, it…
Colombo
Refugee crisis in Sri Lanka after the Easter Sunday bombings
Photo courtesy Gemunu Amarasinghe/Associated Press via “Pakistanis a country where suicide bombings happen on a regular basis, mobs gather and kill minorities and people who think differently, houses and settlements are attacked,…
What now for the moderate Muslim: Reflections after the Easter Sunday terrorism
Image courtesy Quartz Many supposed Muslims are in custody for suspected links with terrorism. Many swords found, including in the suburban Slave Island mosque. Many explosives scattered everywhere. Women killing themselves, the…
The Niqab ban and the politics of distraction
As of last Monday, Sri Lanka is taking a seat at the table next to a list of 13 other countries from across the world who have passed legislation banning the niqab…
White Flags
A series of coordinated bomb explosions killed hundreds in Sri Lanka as they congregated for Easter Sunday mass, on April 21, 2019. Among the six main blast sites were three churches; St….
Massacre of the Innocents: Whereto from here
Photo by JEWEL SAMAD / AFP/GETTY IMAGES via KCUR. “Unmindful are the walking dead The known way is an impasse.” Heraclitus (The Fragments) We have been here before. This blooded precipice is…
Stable Community: A Christmas Reflection
A stable message The birth of Christ ushers a promise of peace for the world. In the fullest teaching of the Bible, peace is the ethos of stable, just and reconciled…
Judiciary’s Message: Constitution and Democracy First
Photo by LAKRUWAN WANNIARACHCHI / AFP via In two judgments delivered in two consecutive days, Sri Lanka’s supreme court has sent out a firm message to the country’s quarrelling political leaders: constitution…
Let memory speak: A litany of remembrance
Photography by Frank Augstein/WPA Pool/Getty Images, via Any intelligent discourse must offer memory its rightful place. This is because, memory has present potential, to take us to happenings of the past, so that…
THE JUSTICIABILITY OF PRESIDENTIAL ACTS
In a week of high-stakes litigation in the two highest courts in the land, a key question in the public discussion over the continuing constitutional crisis in Sri Lanka has focused on…
Constitutions need constitutionalism
In the present constitutional-political crisis, which began in the evening of October 26, 19thAmendment to the 1978 Constitution has come under severe scrutiny. Underlying it is a war of interpretations between two…
Friday Night ‘Special’
Welcome to Lanka who has lost her good reason, Where people must fight in and out of their season. Each one for themselves and not one for the other, Now whom can…
The Parliament Fair
I went to the Parliament fair, The thugs and the thieves they were there, A big buffoon, in broad daylight at noon, Had taken the Speaker’s Chair. The thugs and the thieves…
Write to the Speaker: Template of letter to report violent MPs
The Parliament of Sri Lanka approved a Code of Conduct for Members of Parliament on 7 March 2018 and adopted it with effect from 15 April 2018. Part VIII of the Code…
Deranged
Image via Al Jazeera One man created chaos out of order and plunged an entire country into a seemingly bottomless crisis. Just one ordinary man, in a fortnight. Would Maithripala Sirisena have…