One of the most contested issues in the debate around reform of the Muslim Marriage and Divorce Act (MMDA) has been with regard to increasing the minimum age of marriage for Muslims.…
For the last 11 weeks Shakthika Sathkumara, an award winning creative writer, has been deprived of his liberty by the State, for what appears to be the crime of blasphemy. Apart from…
In the run up to the 2014 Aluthgama riot, the rabble-rousing monk Galagoda Aththe Gnanasara coined the term Aba Saranai, a battle-cry of hate totally at variance with the teachings of the…
Photo by President’s Media Division (PMD) “From now on, people and monks will govern this country from the streets” Aturaliye Ratana Thero (Lankadeepa – 28.5.2019) A man in a suit defending the…
Photo courtesy CNN. “ . “ Real stories-real racism A Colombo taxi driver informed a customer that he was a Muslim. It sounded like an apology. His two previous hires…
It was a casual Sunday breakfast, as I was making notes on refugees in Sri Lanka, when my partner, his eyes still peeled on his phone, exclaimed in shock that a church…
The photos, depicting a saffron-robed Gnanasara Thero, received thousands of reactions on Facebook. “He has been freed” they read. commenters posted on the Facebook Pages of mainstream media like Neth FM and…
My neighbour, Maya, from a Tamil Christian family, usually attends the mass at St. Anthony’s Church every Sunday. But on Easter Sunday she didn’t attend the mass as her brother had returned…
Ramadan, the month of abstinence is when Muslims observe fast, voluntarily depriving themselves from all that are permitted to them on ordinary days. These abstentions are replaced with worship and acts that…
The blue, red, yellow, orange and white lights are on, as are the makeshift stalls selling lanterns. Yet few pause to see, haggle, buy. Vesak, so near chronologically, had never seemed so…
Photo by Gemunu Amarasinghe, via The nexus between Madrasah education and Islamic extremism have been in the global discussions ever since the emergence of the Taliban in Afghanistan. This phenomenon emerged in…
Photo courtesy The message The worship had just reached the the affirmation of God’s intervention in history, when the police arrived. The officer was courteous but firm. The service had to be…
Photo courtesy Getty via The Easter-Sunday attacks have changed a lot of things in Sri Lanka. It proved, if proof was indeed required, the sheer inefficiency of the present government. Some of…
Photo by Asanka Brendon Ratnayake for We hadn’t seen him in years, ever since he left to work abroad. So, on the day of his return, his mother invited the extended family…
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…
