2023: A Year of Struggle for Survival
In 2023 Sri Lanka was struggling to come out of the economic meltdown with aid from the IMF, which required many austerity measures that impacted severely much of the population. People had…
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Murder for Money: The Case of the Forcibly Disappeared Navy 11
Brief Successive government have promised that none of Sri Lanka’s “war heroes” would be tried for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity. Former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa went as far as pardoning…
Prof. Neil DeVotta on the Executive Presidency, Majoritarianism and the State of Democracy
The next two years will be crucial for Sri Lanka; a presidential election will be held in the latter part of 2024 and parliamentary elections will be held in 2025. If the…
Justice Undone in the Mirusuvil Massacre Case
It was one of the rare cases of justice being served – Sergeant Sunil Rathnayake was tried and convicted for the murder of eight civilians in Mirusuvil in Jaffna in 2000. Witnesses…
Why Deshabandu Tennakoon Must Not Continue as Acting Police Chief
On December 14, 2023, the Supreme Court delivered a historic judgement, holding Acting Inspector General of Police (IGP) Deshabandu Tennakoon personally responsible for torture. Before this judgement, there have been reports of…
A Politics of Conscience
On August 14, 2006 the Sri Lankan air force bombed an orphanage in Vallipunam killing 61 schoolgirls. The Rajapaksa administration insisted that the location was a LTTE training camp and the victims…
75 Years On, UDHR’s Relevance in Sri Lanka and Beyond
On December 10, 1948 the UN General Assembly adopted a Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Drawing on grim experience of how misuse of power caused massive destruction and suffering and reflecting…
Combating Corruption: Role of Civil Society
There are actors, arrangements, acts, laws, regulations and institutions responsible for combating corruption. There are circulars issued on matters starting from admission to Grade 1 of a school to buying a ship…
Falsehood vs. Free Speech: Competing Narratives of the Online Safety Bill
In the last two decades, the internet has connected millions of people across the globe and not only changed how humans interact with each other but also transformed the internet space as…
Aswesuma: High Exclusion, Low Transparency?
The Welfare Benefits Board (WBB) called for applications last year for people to be included in the new registry that will bring all the current benefits schemes under one platform names Aswesuma….
Shadows on Justice: Unraveling the Crisis of Custodial Deaths
The Committee for Protecting the Rights of Prisoners (CPRP) took a decisive step towards justice by submitting a special petition to the UN, European Union and the Swiss Embassy in Sri Lanka….
The Mylanthanai Massacre: A Continuing Cycle of Impunity
Nallasera Nallamma was cooking lunch when the soldiers stormed into her remote village of Mylanthanai, one hour northwest of Batticaloa town, on August 9, 1992. They rounded up the villagers, separating the…
Still, the Mirage
The Supreme Court judgement about the Rajapaksa culpability for Sri Lanka’s economic ruin couldn’t have come at a better time. The sense of hope generated by the ending of chronic shortages and…
Palestine and Israel, International Law and Sri Lanka’s Grim Experience
Recent events in the Middle East have left people throughout the world horrified, especially since so many of the injured and killed have been children. Those with widely varying backgrounds and beliefs…
A Governance Diagnostic by the Sri Lankan Public
As the IMF has noted in its Governance Diagnostic Assessment in September, “The resignation of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa in July 2022 emphasized that addressing the crisis required changes in governance as much…
