The onset of the bi-annual sessions of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), in which Sri Lanka features prominently on the agenda through UNHRC Resolution 46/1, contributes to several local activities.…
There has been some progress on aspects of human rights in Sri Lanka in the past year according to a key United Nations report but major failings remain and, on some matters,…
In November 2012 a massacre took place at Welikada Closed Prison in Colombo during which 27 imprisoned persons were killed. On January 13, 2022 one of the three persons charged, Emil Ranjan…
The Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act, No. 48 of 1979 as amended (PTA) has terrorised many Sri Lankans for over four decades. I have also been detained under the PTA, faced…
The former Secretary General of the UN, Kofi Annan, emphasized that terrorism strikes at the very heart of everything the UN stood for and it was a global threat to democracy, the…
The latest drama in the long running saga of the Easter Sunday bombings was the sudden arrest by the CID and subsequent release by the Magistrate’s Court of social activist and Easter…
Protection and justice for the people of Sri Lanka will be discussed by the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) at its 49th session from February 28 to April 1. In the…
Nearly three years have passed since the deadly 2019 Easter Sunday bombings. While failing to prosecute the actual perpetrators, the state has singlehandedly used the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) as a…
Over decades, regardless of the government in power the abuses enabled by the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) never ceased. They only decreased or increased depending on the regime in power. Even…
“Sri Lanka has the world’s second-highest number of cases registered with the United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances. Since the 1980s, an estimated 60,000 to 100,000 people from all…
While Sri Lanka grapples with an inevitable economic meltdown, the international community has not forgotten the country’s obligations to move towards a reconciled society through the process of transitional justice. One of…
Thirty years after ratifying the United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child (UNRC) in 1991, child protection is a national crisis in Sri Lanka. Over the past 16 months, 10…
Desmond Tutu was a black, South African, Christian male but in a world where colour, caste, class, ethnicity, religion, citizenship, sexuality and gender matter, he transcended all of that to be a…
Archbishop Desmond Tutu who passed away this week will be counted among the great human beings who contributed to the political transformation of his own country and a person who revolutionised the…
Two prisoners in Sri Lanka were recently released after being detained for many years, a harsh reminder of the ease with which people can be locked up on flimsy grounds. This has…
