by Civil Society in Colombo, March 202, 2023 Stop Intimidating Judiciary by Civil Society March 20 2023
Posts Categorized: Human Rights
The Elusive Political Solution in Sri Lanka
by Meera Srinivasan, The Hindu, Chennai, India, March 9, 2023, undated March 10 Early February, a group of saffron-clad Buddhist monks gathered near the Sri Lankan Parliament and burnt a copy of the 13th Amendment. They were registering their rage and protest after President Ranil Wickremesinghe vowed to implement the law in full. He had… Read more »
HRW: Recurring Nightmare – State Responsibility for “Disappearances” and Abductions in Sri Lanka 2008
by Human Rights Watch, New York, March 8, 2008 HRW Recurring Nightmare-Full_Report srilanka0308cases This report was originally posted with links to HRW, but those links are being moved, so the report is being reposted here. The current link is Recurring Nightmare: State Responsibility for “Disappearances” and Abductions in Sri Lanka | HRW See HRW statement… Read more »
HCHR on Sri Lanka
by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk, UN Human Rights Council, Geneva, March 7, 2023 Global update: High Commissioner outlines concerns in over 40 countries In Sri Lanka, debilitating debt, and economic crisis, have sharply restricted people’s access to fundamental economic and social rights. Recovery policies will need to redress inequalities, and invest in social… Read more »
Court Orders Army to Produce Three Former LTTE Cadres who Surrendered in Mullaitivu
by Sunday Times, Colombo, March 5, 2023 The Sri Lanka Army has been ordered to produce in court before March 22 three former LTTE cadres who had surrendered to the Mullaitivu army camp in the last stages of the war in May 2009. The order was delivered by the High Court of Vavuniya following three… Read more »
Army Bigwigs Have Made Shameful Attempts to Bury the Truth
by Vellupillai Thangavelu, Colombo Telegraph, March 1, 2023 The quote “Wheels of justice grind slow but grind fine” is credited to Sun Tzu, the author of The Art of War, an influential work of military strategy, But in Sri Lanka this quote should be taken with a pinch of salt. Cases filed in courts gets… Read more »
A Soldier’s Dream
by A. Nillanthan, March 4, 2023 [translated from the original Tamil by Google Translate, with some improvement by the Editor.] The soldier said on the last day that Buddha had appeared in a dream to him in a army camp in Nilavara on the island of Sri Lanka. As Rauf Hakeem once said, the statues… Read more »
Disappeared Tamil Babies of Sri Lanka
by Association for the Relatives of the Enforced Disappearance (North and East Provinces), October 1, 2019 Disappeared Tamil babies of Sri Lanka 2019 by Mothers of the Disappeared Sri Lanka stands out as the only country in the world where babies, as young as eight months old, have enforcedly disappeared by a Government. All these… Read more »
It’s Time to Rethink the Idea of the “Indigenous”
by Manvir Singh, The New Yorker, February 20, 2023 Many groups who identify as Indigenous don’t claim to be first peoples; many who did come first don’t claim to be Indigenous. Can the concept escape its colonial past? The term was shaped by social-evolutionist thinking; white settlers used it to designate the “primitive” other. Podcast… Read more »
UPR Report on Sri Lanka
by UNHRC Working Group on the Universal Periodic Review, February 1, 2023. Report presented to 53rd session of UNHRC, June 2023 G2303666.pdf (un.org) Video of Sri Lanka’s review, February 1, 2023 – Sri Lanka Review – 42nd Session of Universal Periodic Review | UN Web TV Video of adoption of the UPR report February 3,… Read more »
US Sanctions Another Sri Lankan War Criminal
Sri Lanka Prabath Bulathwatte (Bulathwatte), former head of a clandestine Sri Lankan Army platoon, known as the “Tripoli Platoon,” Pursuant to Section 7031(c), the Department of State is designating Bulathwatte for his involvement in a gross violation of human rights, namely torture and/or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment of Sri Lankan journalist, Keith… Read more »
Uprooting People from the Land
Land Grabbing: Current Status and Trends in Sri Lanka by Sri Lanka Nature Group & People’s Alliance for Right to Land – PARL, June 2012 Uprooting People from the Land Land Grabbing Current Status 2012 Abstract This study was carried out to determine the present status and trends of land grabbing in Sri Lanka. The… Read more »
Thaainilam – Land Grabbing
The Real Pandemic for the Tamils in Sri Lanka – Documentary Film Youth Panel Discussion Sept.25, 2021 on ThaaiNilam: Land Grabbing Documentary at Film Premiere
No Space for Memory?
Monuments, Memorials and the Residues of the War in Sri Lanka’s North by Lia Kent, Arena Quarterly, Australia, May 29, 2020 The monuments are impossible to miss. Rising from the flat and otherwise featureless Vanni—the broad, scrubby northern region so different from the dense, fertile vegetation of the island’s south—these official markers to the end… Read more »
The Massacres in Sri Lanka during the Black July Riots of 1983
by Eleanor Pavey, SciencesPo Mass Violence and Resistance – Research Network, France, May 13, 2008 A. CONTEXT The 1983 massacres in Sri Lanka are best understood within the context of the post-independent state of affairs that prevailed in the country at that time. Having obtained independence from its British colonial rulers on February 4, 1948,… Read more »
Does Sri Lanka Need a Truth and Reconciliation Mechanism?
by Mirak Raheem, Groundviews, Colombo, November 26, 2022 Groundviews on Instagram: “In 2018, the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe government laid the groundwork for the establishment of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Its…” In the lead up to the September session of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) the Government of Sri Lanka floated the proposal of establishing… Read more »
‘Satygraha: Freedom Movement of Tamils in Ceylon’
by S. Ponniah, 1963 68740.pdf (noolaham.net) Satyagraha by S Ponniah 1963 Transcribed by Satchi Sri Kantha with commentary Satyagraha of February 1961 in Eelam Satyagraha of March 1961 in Eelam
Sri Lanka at Brink of Humanitarian Crisis
Financial Partners Should Support Basic Needs, Promote Respect for Rights by Meenakshi Ganguly, Human Rights Watch, New York, November 24, 2022 The dramatic fuel shortages that accompanied mass protests in Sri Lanka earlier this year may have eased, but for millions of Sri Lankans the economic crisis is worse than ever. This month, the United… Read more »
The Struggle of Memories against Oblivion
by Nillanthan Maha, November 27, 2022 [translation by Google Translate, with some corrections by the editor] This is the 14th Heroes’ Day since 2009. For the last 13 years, Heroes’ Day has been celebrated in one way or another, secretly and openly. Remembrance for the Tamil people has deeper dimensions than just crying and grieving…. Read more »
UNHRC: Unlucky Seven For Sri Lanka
by S.V. Kirubaharan, Eurasian Review and The Morning, Colombo, October 11, 2022 Abraham Lincoln once said: “You can please some of the people some of the time, all of the people some of the time, some of the people all of the time, but you can never please all of the people all of the… Read more »