Reading Poetry at the Attorney General’s Department
A prisoner goes to the jail’s library to borrow a book. The librarian says, “I am sorry, we don’t have this book, but we have its author.” It’s a Turkish joke, much…
gvtop
Rotten Creeds, Failed Gods
“A leader is found! Yet cautiously to myself I ask, a leader to where? Despair overthrown often turns us in mad directions.” Katharine Kressmann Taylor (Address unknown) In Brother Grimm’s Little Briar…
The Disturbing Echoes of July 1983
July 1983 was one of the grimmest months in Sri Lankan history as state-organised anti-minority “riots” paved the way for decades of violence and human rights abuses across the country. The effect…
Trying to Silence a Fearless Voice: The Case of Tharindu Jayawardhana
Tharindu Jayawardhana is one of Sri Lanka’s most outstanding and promising young journalists. His writings and MediaLK, the news website he founded in 2019, are noted for highlighting some of the most critical…
A Cruel Government Supports Torture by Opposing Preventive Law
An amendment to the Code of Criminal Procedure allowing the Magistrates to visit places of detention has been turned into a political issue by a section of the government and by some…
Killing Free Education with the Kotelawala National Defence University Bill
The debate over the Kotelawala National Defence University (KNDU) Bill has become a scorching issue in the past few weeks. It has been heated not only due to the resistance from civil…
False Promises: The Myth of Security and the Prevention of Terrorism Act
For decades human rights activists have highlighted the draconian nature of the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA), which promises safety and security, yet in practice makes each citizen vulnerable to being arbitrarily…
Short Sighted Agricultural Policies Spell Doom for Farmers and the Country
The decision to ban chemical fertilizer is one of the crucial policy changes taken by the current government since coming to power. It received mix reactions from the public. The government’s argument…
Harnessing Sri Lanka’s #metoo Moment into a Movement
A few weeks ago Sri Lanka’s own #metoo movement came out in strong condemnation of incidents of sexual harassment that came to light as a number of professionals began to speak out….
The Final Nail in the Coffin of the Wild Elephant
Part 1 dealt with how that icon of Uda Walawe, Rambo the mature bull elephant who has been conditioned to accept food from those passing the National Park, now faces the prospect…
Are We the Architects of Our Own Destruction?
These quotes from conservationists and architects are very relevant to modern Colombo where it seems like every day another huge glass and concrete structure springs up like a poisonous mushroom, blocking the…
The Urgent Need for a Plastic-Free World
Over a month after a fire broke out onboard the MV X-Press Pearl that brought about the worst ecological disaster, Sri Lanka is still far from recovery. The inferno of the chemical-laden…
Playing Catch Up: Sri Lanka’s MeToo Movement
Sri Lanka’s MeToo Movement is currently being described by Al Jazeera, The Hindu and The Independent as ‘delayed’ or ‘belated’, with stories of harassment, abuse and violation of women in professional spheres…
Go Not Meekly Into the Rajapaksa Night
The 93 year old woman had died of Covid-19. Her body was brought to the Mathugama cemetery in a hospital ambulance, placed inside the crematorium, then hastily removed and returned to the…
The ‘Punishment Bureaucracy’ and the Normalization of Torture and Impunity
Justice Kulatunga During the period March 2020 to 24 June 2021 there were reports of six cases of encounter killings, twenty-seven cases of police violence, eight deaths in police custody, four deaths…