S. P. Huntington has presciently warned that democratic transitions are vulnerable and reversible if ruling elites do not show genuine commitment to democratic values. He argues: “When they are out of power,…
Sri Lanka is a nation of paradoxes; the land where millions identify as Buddhists, has also seen decades of bloodshed and war due to ethnic conflicts. In the folds of its rich…
The government is being criticised by the UN Human Rights Council and foreign governments for a range of human rights violations including increased surveillance and intimidation of those seeking justice for their…
It was a dramatic moment: a tall, well-built young man dressed in white with a black band tied across his forehead pushed his way through the closed gates of the church premises…
“I am the luckiest mother in Sri Lanka. I got my son’s body back. There are thousands of mothers who never get their children’s bodies back.” Dr. Manorani Saravanamuttu was speaking after…
It has been 37 years since the anti-Tamil pogrom of July 1983, a riot that set the country ablaze and sparked a 30-year long and bloody war. But even after nearly four…
Photo by AP Photo/Eranga Jayawardena, via Living in challenging times can be a blessing if changes during that time move one’s country towards a fair and progressive era. Otherwise its society will…
Image courtesy by Human Rights Watch. The murder of George Floyd in the United States has in the past week resulted in a renewed focus on Police violence, torture, brutality and impunity….
Photo by Tharaka Basnayaka/NurPhoto via Getty Images, taken off Middle East Institute In what must surely count as one of the most hilarious, unintentionally ironic and terrifying proclamations ever uttered by a…
Book Review – Phil Miller, Keenie Meenie: The British Mercenaries Who got away with War Crimes, (Pluto Press, 2020) Eleven years ago, in May 2009, the Sri Lankan security forces decisively defeated…
Image via , by AFP. Last year, suffering and death struck with the arrival of Easter, to plunge us back into Good Friday. Thousands who lost loved ones and limbs were shattered…
Photo courtesy NewsInAsia “…by tomorrow, everything will already look different; by tomorrow, everything will already feel different.” – Viktor Klemperer () It was October 1348. Bubonic plague, known to posterity as the…
‘What physicians say about consumptive illness is applicable here: that at the beginning, such an illness is easy to cure but difficult to diagnose; but as time passes, not having been recognised…
Image Samya Arif/Medium Read the full article on The Hindu. Click here to access the full text of the Colombo Declaration, an excerpt of which is below: Whereas on the occasion of…
Comrade Saman Wagaarachchi had joined the JVP in early 1977 while we were still being held incarcerated for our role in the April 1971 uprising. Later I heard that he had supported…
