UK Core Group Statement to introduce Item 2 Resolution on Sri Lanka. Delivered by the UK’s Permanent Representative to the WTO and UN, Kumar Iyer. From: Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office and Kumar Iyer CMG Delivered on: 6 October 2025 (Transcript of the speech, exactly as it was delivered) Thank you, Mr. President. I have the honour to… Read more »
Posts Categorized: Human Rights
ABC: More than 200 Skeletons Uncovered in Mass Grave
In Sri Lanka, exposing its haunting history by Nicholene Canisius, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, October 4, 2025 Saaratha Iruthayanathar was six years old when she last saw her father leaving to get groceries, during the Sri Lankan civil war. To this day, she still does not know whether he is dead or alive. While travelling by… Read more »
US State Dept.: 2024 Sri Lanka Human Rights Report
by US Department of State, Washington, DC, August 12, 2025 Sri Lanka Human Rights Report US State Dept 2024 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY After the widely contested September 21 presidential elections and November 14 snap parliamentary elections, civil society groups called on the first voter-elected presidential administration since 2022 to build on the demands for good governance… Read more »
Two Steps Backwards
Tamil Guardian editorial, , London, September 15, 2025 To call the latest draft resolution from the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva disappointing would be far too kind. It is not simply a missed opportunity, but a disastrous step backwards in the long and painful struggle for justice for the Tamil people. Sixteen years… Read more »
ICG: Sri Lanka’s National People’s Power Faces the Legacy of Civil War
President Anura Kumara Dissanayake and his National People’s Power government are struggling to build a more stable, inclusive political culture in Sri Lanka. A mix of bold action and political skill will be needed. Support from the UN Human Rights Council can help. by Alan Keenan, International Crisis Group, Brussels, September 5, 2025 The election… Read more »
UN Human Rights Council 60th Session
Geneva, September/October 2025 UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (HCHR) oral report based on his written report, September 8, 2025 https://youtu.be/u_hebwD0fRE?si=BMN-_48S-QVsKH1Q Full interactive dialogue on Sri Lanka, September 8 HCHR, plus statements of country groups, starting at 2hrs, 57min, 54sec – 1st Meeting – 60th Session of Human Rights Council | UN Web TV Country statement,… Read more »
ITJP: Killing of Journalist Nimalarajan Mylvaganam
Killing Sri Lankan Journalists by International Truth & Justice Project, South Africa, September 7, 2025 Full report in English (Tamil & Sinhala also available) KILLING-SRI-LANKAN-JOURNALISTS_THE-CASE-OF-NIMALARAJAN-MYLVAGANAM_Final_ENGLISH_Web_compressed Press Release: Sri Lanka Has Shielded Killers of Journalists, Finds New Report Examining Investigation Failures in BBC Reporter’s Murder. Johannesburg – Sri Lanka has systematically shielded the killers of journalists… Read more »
Chemmani: Seven New Sets of Human Remains Exhumed
by Sulochana Ramiah Mohan and T. Pratheepan – Jaffna, Ceylon Today, September 4, 2025 Seven new sets of human remains were fully exhumed from the Chemmani mass grave yesterday (3), while additional nine sets were identified. This marks the continuation of the third section of the second phase of excavations at the site, which began… Read more »
Fact Finding Report of HRCSL on Chemmani
by Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka, Colombo, September 2025 Fact-Finding-Report-of-HRCSL-on-Chemmani-Mass-Grave-Site This report details the main findings, observations, and recommendations of the HRCSL emerging from its visit and subsequent developments surrounding the exhumations and excavations at the mass grave site in Chemmani. The findings and observations are organised under specific themes: (1) the functions and… Read more »
Memories of Mass Murder
Unearthed bones in Chemmani reopen the wounds of Sri Lanka’s war years and the silence that followed. by Saikiran Kannan, Frontline, The Hindu, Chennai, September 1, 2025 The excavators kept digging in the midday heat, when something soft-blue rose above the dusty earth: a child’s school bag, its nylon straps still looped around a tiny… Read more »
Sri Lanka Faces Renewed Global Scrutiny Ahead of UNHRC Session
by Sulochana Ramiah Mohan, Ceylon Today, Colombo, August 16, 2025 Sri Lanka is once again under the global human rights spotlight as the 60th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) approaches. With mounting momentum for the adoption of a resolution targeting the country’s human rights record, questions remain over how the newly… Read more »
Buried Tales of Past Violence from Chemmani
Chemmani is Sri Lanka’s collective shame and evidence of systemic failure to deal with extra-judicial killings and deliver truth, justice and accountability by Dilrukshi Hanunnett, The New Indian Express, Chennai, July 6, 2025 More recently reprinted from The Associated Press, NY, see below also: A wartime mass grave in Sri Lanka yields a baby bottle,… Read more »
‘Quest for Human Rights: The Sri Lanka Ethnic Issue’
by Sunil C. Roy, VAP Enterprises, New Delhi, 1987 Comment by former Sangam Founder and Editor, Dr. Rajan Sriskandarajah: Just prior to the 1987 Indian military intervention in Sri Lanka’s national (ethnic) conflict, a booklet detailing the persecution of the Tamils, was widely distributed all over the world. Although it was printed & distributed privately,… Read more »
Rep. Bill Johnson One Minute Speech re Sri Lanka
by US.Representative Bill Johnson (R-OH), US Congress, Washington, DC, May 16, 2013
Argentina: Searching for the Children of the Disappeared
A new book examines the extraordinary decades-long campaign by Argentinean women to find their grandchildren. by Graciela Mochkofsky, The New Yorker, July 31, 2025 “Ispent five years researching and writing this story, and I still find it hard to believe,” Haley Cohen Gilliland told me during the launch of her book, “A Flower Traveled in… Read more »
HRW: Police Target Families of ‘Disappeared’
UN Human Rights Council Should Monitor Repression, Counterterrorism Law Abuses by Human Rights Watch, New York, August 20, 2025 (Geneva) – Sri Lankan security forces still harass families of victims of forced disappearances and misuse the country’s draconian counterterrorism law a year since President Anura Kumara Dissanayake took office with promises of reform, Human Rights Watch said today…. Read more »
Government Announcing Release of Lands in Jaffna Largely Political Rhetoric
by LankaFiles, July 28, 2025 It has been revealed that the repeated claims made by successive presidents, including the current head of state, regarding the release of ancestral lands in the Valikamam region of Jaffna district, are largely political rhetoric. At a press conference held in Jaffna, civil society activists and local residents asserted that… Read more »
AHRC: Island of Mass Graves 2014
by Asian Human Rights Commission, Hong Kong, Feb-Apr 2014 These articles contain important information on Chemmani and other mass graves. AHRC Island of Mass Graves 2014 editorial AHRC Island of Mass Graves 2014 enforced disappearances AHRC Island of Mass Graves 2014 Chemmani unearthed yet untold SRI LANKA: The Island of mass graves – Asian Human… Read more »
Türk: Sri Lanka has Opportunity to Break from Past
by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, August 13, 2025 Non-official UN languages:Tamil version (PDF) Sinhala version (PDF) GENEVA – A report published today by the UN Human Rights Office calls on Sri Lanka’s Government to seize the historic opportunity to break with entrenched impunity, implement transformative reforms, and deliver long-overdue justice and accountability for serious violations and abuses… Read more »
OHCHR’s 2025 Report on Sri Lanka
by UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Geneva, August 12, 2025 a-hrc-60-21-auv.pdf OHCHR report on Sri Lanka Aug 12 2025 Summary The present report, submitted pursuant to Human Rights Council resolution 57/1, provides a comprehensive analysis of the human rights situation in Sri Lanka. It notes the new Government’s pledges to address… Read more »