Bringing Them Home – The Need of the Hour For Migrant Workers
From Lithuania, Italy, Korea, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and other many countries the plea is the same: bring us home. From cities and villages across Sri Lanka the plea is the same: bring…
Human Rights
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…
A Tribute to Malathi de Alwis and Her Work
Malathi de Alwis, friend, mentor, teacher, feminist, anthropologist, birder, foodie and the most amazing cook, passed away on January 21. As we mourn this utterly devastating, untimely loss of one of the…
Calls to Hold Sri Lankan State to Account at UN Human Rights Council
The Sri Lankan government is likely to face an uncomfortable time at the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) session in February-March 2021. Strong criticism can be expected, in the light of…
Reforms Needed to Combat Sexual and Gender Based Violence
In his presidential election manifesto, Gotabaya Rajapaksa noted that “Sexual and Gender Based violence has increased in our country”. However, during his first year in office, little has been done to introduce…
Abolition Is Not A Whimsical Dream: Envisioning a Life Beyond the Carceral State
Abolition is not a delusional cry for social chaos. It goes beyond the momentary, deconstructive approach of eliminating the police. Abolition calls for the active reimagining and recreation of a society in…
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…
Watching Funny Boy in Sri Lanka: A Review
We watched the film, Funny Boy, directed by Deepa Mehta and adapted from Shyam Selvadurai’s 1994 novel, twice. We were surrounded by the numerous debates and controversies about the film. The first…
Forcible Cremation: A Blatant Case of Racial Discrimination
For nine months Muslims in Sri Lanka have been begging the government to allow them to bury relatives who have died of COVID-19. Their plea has been supported by some non-Muslim civil…
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.…
We Will Not Forget
We will not forget Mullivaikkal, the shot, the strafed, the scissored, and the cluster-bombed. We will not forget holes in roofs, holes in water tanks, holes in heads. We will not…
Too Polarized to Reconcile? The Struggle for Transitional Justice in Sri Lanka
In Sri Lanka, the challenge to achieve transitional justice lies not in the process alone but also in coming to terms with the ultimate goal. In a post-war context, what is the…
Civil Society Calls on Government to Enable Burials of COVID-19 Dead
We the undersigned individuals and civil society organisations welcome the recent statements from eminent and authoritative individuals and organisations in the medical field in Sri Lanka approving the burial of COVID 19…
Dead Body Politics and Racism: A Prayer for 2021
Federation World Health Organization, Infection prevention and control for the safe management of a dead body in the context of COVID-19, Interim guidance (September 4, 2020). Forced cremation of those who pass…
Prisoners Are Human Beings
When we aren’t able to give you more room, than you had inside your mother’s womb, When we ask you to excrete, in a plastic bag, like a dog on the…
