by The Collective for Climate and Economic Justice, Groundviews, Colombo, June 25, 2026 Photo courtesy of Amila Udagedara On June 17, 2026 delegates filed into the Galle Face hotel for the Mineral Sands Technical Conference. Inside, the Chamber of Commerce was doing what it does best: opening doors for capital and closing them on everyone… Read more »
Monthly Archives: June 2026
Chemmani Excavation: A Defining Test
for Truth, Justice and Reconciliation by Raj Sivanathan, Groundviews, Colombo, June 21, 2026 The visit by Minister of Justice Harshana Nanayakkara to the ongoing excavation site at Chemmani in Jaffna has once again focused national attention on one of the country’s most sensitive and unresolved human rights issues. His assurance that the government is committed… Read more »
How Photographs Defied All Attempts to Bury the Memory of Sri Lanka’s War
by Shyam Tekwani, TheWire.in, June 25, 2026 A groundbreaking study of how everyday photographs became instruments of memory, mourning and political resistance in the aftermath of Sri Lanka’s civil war. I should say at the outset that I am not a disinterested reader of this book. I am in it. In her third chapter, Buthpitiya… Read more »
Urgent Concerns Regarding the Imminent Deployment of Sri Lankan Forces to Haiti
by International Peace & Justice Project Sri Lanka & 14 other organizations, June 25, 2026 Final Joint Statement Sri Lanka Haiti Deployment_logos_included NGO STATEMENT URGENT CONCERNS REGARDING THE IMMINENT DEPLOYMENT OF SRI LANKAN FORCES TO HAITI 25 June 2026 International human rights and victims’ groups call on the United Nations, the Government of Haiti, and… Read more »
SLC: New Proposal Calls for Independent National DNA Bank
by Sri Lanka Campaign for Peace & Justice, London, February 20, 2026 PRESS RELEASE: New Proposal Calls for Independent National DNA Bank to Identify Sri Lanka’s Disappeared A new concept paper published on 19 February by the Sri Lanka Campaign for Peace and Justice sets out an independent plan to establish a National DNA Bank… Read more »
The Political Work of Photography
A Conversation with Vindhya Buthpitiya by University of Washington Press, Seattle, USA, June 22, 2026 Throughout Sri Lanka’s protracted civil war and its turbulent aftermath, photography has become bound to the Tamil political imagination. Studio portraits, passport pictures, family albums, atrocity photography, social media posts, and more act not only as records of loss and… Read more »
SLC & BTF: No Sri Lankan Military Deployment to Haiti
Until there is credible accountability, independent vetting and justice for victims by Sri Lanka Campaign for Peace & Justice & British Tamils Forum joint statement, London, May 6, 2026 The Sri Lanka Campaign for Peace & Justice (SLC) and the British Tamils Forum (BTF) are deeply alarmed by reports that Sri Lanka may once again… Read more »
Digital Rights Foundation’s Sri Lanka Chapter
Fragments, not architecture: how a Digital Rights Foundation report’s Sri Lanka chapter misreads a pervasive surveillance state …The authors Prihesh Ratnayake and Omar Rajarathnam mention Tamils and Muslims without treating unequal exposure as the central analytical problem, which is where it belongs, since Sri Lanka’s security state has never distributed suspicion evenly and surveillance lands hardest… Read more »
Vaddukoddai – 50 Keynote Speech
by Thavathiru Velan Swamigal, Chief Coordinator, Vaddukoddai-50 Ezhuchi Maanadu Organising Committee, Jaffna, June 20, 2026 Vaddukoddai – 50 Keynote Speech … We Reclaim Our Nation Today, we have gathered not merely to commemorate a historical event. Rather, we have come together to reflect upon a defining turning point in the history of the Eelam Tamil… Read more »
Impunity, Inequality, and Resistance: Fifty Years On
by J. S. Tissainnayagam, North Eastern Monthly, May 22, updated June 23, 2026 The 50th anniversary of the Vaddukoddai Resolution falls on 14 May. Despite the intervening half-century, the conditions in Sri Lanka that gave birth to the Resolution remain almost intact, forcing Tamils to resist Sinhala hegemony and stand up for dignity, justice and equality. The… Read more »
UNHRC 62: Sri Lanka Core Group Statement
by UK Ambassador Eleanor Sanders on behalf of Sri Lanka Core Group, Geneva, June 16, 2026 Thank you Mr President. This statement is by the Sri Lanka Core Group comprising Canada, Malawi, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and the United Kingdom. High Commissioner, we thank your Office for its continued work on Sri Lanka. We acknowledge government… Read more »
The Afterlife of War’s Images
A veteran correspondent who covered the civil war in Sri Lanka reflects on how photographs become fodder for conferences and fellowships, even as their subjects recede into oblivion by Shyam Tekwani, New Lines Magazine, Washington, DC, June 15, 2026 Listen to this article 25 min They were still shooting when I raised the camera. The… Read more »
MGR Remembered – Part 87
Fifth International Tamil Research Conference, Madurai – Jan 1981 by Sachi Sri Kantha, June 17, 2026 Prelude: Since 1981, I have written my experiences as a Sri Lankan delegate to this Fifth International Tamil Research Conference held at Madurai between Jan 4 and 10, 1981 in print and digital media. Cited sources section below, provides… Read more »
Action Against Hunger Calls for a New Investigation
Twenty Years On, the Killing of 17 Humanitarian Workers Remains Unpunished by Action Contre le Faim, Paris, June 15, 2026 Twenty years ago, on August 4, 2006, 17 staff members of Action Against Hunger, engaged in delivering humanitarian aid, were executed in our office in Muttur, Sri Lanka. They were wearing T-shirts and vests clearly… Read more »
Sri Lanka’s Victims of Sexual Violence In Conflict
Decades Without Justice by International Truth & Justice Project Sri Lanka, South Africa, June 17, 2026 Yasmin Sooka of ITJP discusses with Johann Soufi of OSLAP & Sherine Xavier of Social Architects https://www.youtube.com/live/qr4P-mor-Fs?si=DvYNhYlxrWSbNKmq *** Documentary featured in the discussion Post Script Lanka – YouTube
TG: Sri Lanka’s First Anti-Tamil Pogrom
Remembering 1956 by Tamil Guardian, London, June 15, 2026 This week marks 70 years since Sri Lanka’s first anti-Tamil pogroms, when government backed Sinhala mobs murdered more than 150 Tamils across the island – the first of many massacres that were to take place in the decades to come. Violence first flared as Tamil… Read more »
TG: Scared of a Song
Tamil Guardian editorial, London, June 12, 2026 Sangeethsan Ganeskumar walked free on bail today, ten days after Sri Lankan police decided his music was a crime. The 24-year-old rapper from Kilinochchi, known as HipHop Sangee, had performed at a temple festival, filmed the evening, set the footage to his own music and uploaded it. For this,… Read more »
Dr. Devanesan Nesiah
A Civil Servant Who Told the Truth by Pitsanna Shanmugathas, Groundviews, Colombo, June 15, 2026 Dr. Devanesan Nesiah spent decades in service to a country that rarely made it easy for him. A Tamil civil servant of uncompromising integrity, he worked through pogroms, broken political compacts and civil war, holding fast to a conviction that… Read more »
War and the Political Work of Photography in Sri Lanka
A Volatile Picture by Vindhya Buthpitiya, June 2026 PUBLISHED: June 2026 SUBJECT LISTING: Asian Studies / South Asia, Anthropology, Visual Studies BIBLIOGRAPHIC INFORMATION: 304 Pages, 6 x 9 in, 30 b&w illus. SERIES: Global South Asia ISBN: 9780295754444 Publisher: University of Washington Press A Volatile Picture Photography as witness and weapon amid civil war This… Read more »
Is Power Devolution Under JVP-NPP A Political Daydream?
by Rajan Philips, Colombo Telegraph, June 7, 2026 If Dr. Vigneswaran’s assertion were to prove correct, a potential dissolution of the provincial system under the JVP-NPP government would be the consummation of the JVP’s original opposition to the introduction of the provincial council system itself. The whole system may not be eradicated, but it could… Read more »