Urgent Legal Reforms Needed to Deal with Unidentified Bodies
Hiru News Over the last two months, six unidentified bodies have washed up on the shores of the Western Province creating fear and suspicion of a new trend of targeted violence. The…
Politics and Governance
Decriminalising Consensual Same-sex Sexual Relations: Amendments Versus Repeal
In a major development in the human rights arena, SLPP parliamentarian and lawyer Premanath C. Dolawatte handed over a private member’s bill to President Ranil Wickremesinghe seeking to amend laws that marginalise…
Rule of Law in Sri Lanka: A Farce or a Reality?
The rule of law is a complex and critical principle of governance. The late Thomas Bingham, a Supreme Court Judge in the United Kingdom, wrote a prominent book on the rule of…
Paying Attention to the Voices That Will Not Be Silenced
As the world marks another International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances, in Sri Lanka, which has the second highest number of forcibly disappeared in the world after Iraq, families of…
Performance Art and Political Protest
Performance art is an offshoot of visual arts where the artist uses his or her body as a medium of communication. Performance art has always been interconnected with society and politics. Artists…
Stability Versus the Social Contract
Order and stability have been the key words defining the early days of the Wickremesinghe presidency. They are touted as being the mantra that will set Sri Lanka on the path to…
Free the People
We will not be distracted. The emotion rushes through us like a river enraged, if a river, or a fault line, the heating jet stream, if these can be given human volition,…
Sri Lanka: On the Edge of an Abyss
An unprecedented economic crisis has shaken Sri Lanka with the price of essential goods and fuel rising rapidly and electricity shortages continuing to operate throughout the country. The political situation and crisis…
Widespread Condemnation for Detention of Protesters Under PTA
After a number of protestors were arrested in Colombo, three student activists have been detained under the notorious Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) despite expressions of concern from the international community. Amid…
Tourism Guidance
Wait a minute Sanath. First congrats on your appointment as Tourism Ambassador. Now you say Sri Lanka is back and tourists can come. But will the Prevention of Terrorism Act apply…
Prelude to Elections
Most politicians have a questionable relationship with reality. The Rajapaksas operate in a reality that is all their own. Asked why brother Gotabaya fled the country, Mahinda Rajapaksa replied, “Who accuses him…
Women in the Estate Sector Face Many Layers of Discrimination
Maatram Women played a significant part in the growth and stability of the plantation economy throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Women were brought along with men by the British…
Bringing Democracy Back Through People’s Power
Sri Lanka’s politics is at the crossroads. One path opened before the people is that of re-democratisation. It comes after decades of de-democratisation carried out by different factions of the country’s political…
The Right Queue
Poems are waiting in a queue. But that is alright. They are poems only, not people lining up for kerosene, or fish, or paper. or petrol. I write them in a…
Towards a Political Vision with Social Justice and Pluralism
Statfor The post war Sri Lankan state’s inability to fulfil the demands of global finance capital has devastated the lives of millions of Sri Lankans. This is a country where we see…
