by Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Geneva, March 4, 2022 Video Update and Interactive dialogue on Sri Lanka Statement by Michelle Bachelet, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights 49th session of the Human Rights Council 4 March 2022 Distinguished President, Excellencies, Council Members have received our written update on Sri Lanka (A/HRC/49/9). It… Read more »
UN Experts Call for Swift Suspension of Prevention of Terrorism Act
by Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Geneva, March 2, 2022 UN human rights experts* have called for an immediate moratorium on the use of Sri Lanka’s Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA), and urged the Government to substantively review and revise the legislation to comply with international human rights law. “There is a… Read more »
Verité: Res. 30/1 Implementation Monitor
by Verité Research, Colombo, February 2021 Implementation Status UNHRC Res.30.1 Feb 2021 Verite This brief contains an updated analysis of progress since UNHRC’s Resolution 30/1 passed in September 2015.
UN High Commissioner for HR Report on Sri Lanka
by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, A/HRC/49/9, Geneva, February 25, 2022 20220225 UNHCHR Report on Sri Lanka Human Rights Council Forty-ninth session 28 February–1 April 2022 Agenda item 2 Annual report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and reports of the Office of the High Commissioner and the Secretary-General Promoting reconciliation,… Read more »
Amnesty: End the Use of and Repeal the Draconian PTA
by Amnesty International, London, February 18, 2022 Index Number: ASA 37/5241/2022 Amnesty Repeal PTA Feb 18 2022 43 years since it was first passed as a temporary measure, the draconian PTA continues to be used by the Government of Sri Lanka to target, and harass minorities, activists, journalists and critical voices. Despite assurances to amend… Read more »
What is India’s Response?
by Nillanthan Maha on his blog, Jaffna, February 19, 2022 [translated from the Tamil by Google Translate with some edits] Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is reportedly coming to Sri Lanka to attend the BIMSTEC conference** to be held in Colombo next month. To date, the Government of India has not officially confirmed. If Narendra… Read more »
British War Crimes Police Arrest Man Over Murder of Tamil Journalist in Jaffna
by Tamil Guardian, London, February 24, 2022 The Metropolitan Police’s War Crimes Team have arrested a 48-year-old man in Britain over the murder of Tamil journalist Mylvaganam Nimalarajan in Jaffna more than 20 years ago – marking the first time that British authorities have made an arrest over war crimes committed in Sri Lanka. In… Read more »
Universal Jurisdiction — the Most Difficult Path
To Achieve Justice in Sri Lanka by Andreas Schuller, JustSecurity, New York, February 24, 2022 (Editor’s Note: This is the latest in a series on the spotlight to be placed on allegations of war crimes and other abuses in Sri Lanka during the Feb. 22 to March 23, 2021, session of the United Nations Human Rights… Read more »
Decoding Don Stephen Senanayake (1884 -1952)
On his 70th death anniversary by Prof. Alfred Jayaratnam Wilson, Lanka Guardian, a 4 part series starting January 1, 1992 Front Note by Sachi Sri Kantha Don Stephen Senanayake (popularly abbreviated by his initials D.S.), the first prime minister of independent Ceylon, died on March 22, 1952. While he has been touted as the… Read more »
How Britain Stole $45 Trillion from India
And lied about it by Jason Hickel, Al Jazeera, Dubai, December 19, 2018 There is a story that is commonly told in Britain that the colonisation of India – as horrible as it may have been – was not of any major economic benefit to Britain itself. If anything, the administration of India was a cost to… Read more »
It’s Time for the Human Rights Council to Act on Sri Lanka
Former UN High Commissioner Pillay Says by Laurel B. Fletcher, JustSecurity, New York, February 15, 2022 (Editor’s Note: This is the latest in a series on the likely spotlight to be placed on allegations of war crimes and other abuses in Sri Lanka during the next session of the United Nations Human Rights Council, beginning Feb…. Read more »
The Year of Darkness
by Sumi Moonesinghe, The Island, Colombo, February 6, 2022 narrated to Savitri Rodrigo July 1983 was one of the darkest months this country has ever experienced. It was then that I saw my countrymen turn on each other and where barbarism outweighed every Buddhist precept upon which the country had built its foundations. Black July… Read more »
A Multispecies History of the Ceylon Pearl Fishery 1800–1925
Seeing like the sea by Tamara Fernando, Past & Present, Volume 254, Issue 1, February 2022, Pages 127–160, https://doi.org/10.1093/pastj/gtab002 Published: 21 September 2021 PDF Abstract The pearl fishery of Ceylon was a lucrative source of pearls as well as a theatre of colonial power. But instead of narrating a story of abstracted governmentality, this paper dives below… Read more »
MGR Remembered – Part 64
Completing Four Decades as a Movie Star by Sachi Sri Kantha, February 1, 2022 To the previous part 63, friend R. Kannan’s comments received on December 24th was as follows: “A very comprehensive account pulling together the various strands neatly. I haven’t seen Dungan’s interview and have also yet to lay my hands on his memoirs. Kudos…. Read more »
HRW: Sri Lanka’s Failure to Reform the Prevention of Terrorism Act
“In a legal black hole” by Human Rights Watch, New York, February 7, 2022 February 7, 2022 News Release Sri Lanka: Grave Abuses Under Discredited Law Summary Sri Lanka’s Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) has been used for over 40 years to enable prolonged arbitrary detention, to extract false confessions through torture, and to target minority… Read more »
Trilingual Blunders
Signboards, Social Media, and Transnational Sri Lankan Tamil Publics by Prof. Christina P. Davis, Signs & Society, Volume 8, Number 1, Winter 2020 ABSTRACT In Sri Lanka all public signs are required by law to be in Sinhala, Tamil, and English. This article investigates the multiple, clashing ways that Sri Lankan Tamil speakers (Tamils and… Read more »
Review: ‘The Red Tern’
by Zulma Publishers, France, Spring 2022 Originally in Tamil, translated into French as ‘La Sterne Rouge’ A major Sri Lankan voice Ala is born and raised in Sri Lanka, in a Tamil village prone to attacks from Sinhalese paramilitary groups. Exposed to inter-ethnic violence, she is still a child when she joins the Tamil Tigers…. Read more »
What Makes Amnesty’s Apartheid Report Different?
by Maureen Clare Murphy, The Electronic Intifada, February 3, 2022 What makes Amnesty International’s new report determining that Israel practices the crime of apartheid against Palestinians any different from those that came before it? Certainly, Israel’s “hysterical” reaction – (in the words of one Haaretz headline) – to the Amnesty study is notably different from its relatively understated response to similar… Read more »
Jailing Activists & Pardoning Murderers
Monitoring ten issues of concern in Sri Lanka in 2021 by Sri Lanka Campaign for Peace & Justice, February 2022 Read the full report as a PDF Monitoring issues of concern In March 2021, the UN Human Rights Council passed Resolution 46/1: Promoting reconciliation, accountability and human rights in Sri Lanka. The resolution identified ten… Read more »
Abolishing PTA is the Only Way Out
by Basil Fernando, Groundviews, February 2, 2022 The Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) (Amendment) Bill, a bill to amend the Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act, No. 48 of 1979 (PTA), has been gazetted by the order of the Minister of Foreign Affairs. The proposed amendment still leaves much that has been criticized as dangerous… Read more »