After 10 years of a fragile peace, the deadly bombings on April 21 have blighted the eastern lagoon landscape of the island nation, pitting religious communities against one another. Meera Srinivasan reports on the simmering tensions in the aftermath of the attacks.
Every few metres in (...)
In Sri Lanka, the challenge is to turn national mourning into a call for coexistence and democracy.
As reports about those behind the Easter Sunday attacks in Sri Lanka emerge, many questions remain about the motives of the extremists. The full picture of the formation of this extremist force (...)
After the Easter bombings, I am struggling to understand how violent ideology has taken hold in my Muslim community.
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Two days after the Easter Sunday bomb attacks in Sri Lanka, I met my greengrocer at the Colpetty market, a symbol of the cosmopolitan city that I call home. (...)
The news did not initiate a new fear — it ignited an old one, based on myriad experiences from the war.
On the evening of April 20, I was making Easter bread with my children at our home in California when a friend texted me, saying there had been bombings in Sri Lanka. My chest hurt. I (...)
I believe it was 2002. An organisation so far unknown in our village began propaganda declaring that watching TV is Haram. They didn’t just stop with propaganda. They went from house to house and broke TV antennas, they warned shopkeepers who sell DVDs to not do so and they burnt shops.
Some (...)
(CNN)Since multiple blasts killed at least 253 people and injured hundreds more in Sri Lanka last Sunday, the government has declared a state of emergency, bringing back draconian anti-terrorism laws that will curtail civil liberties and increase militarization.
Officials have begun to (...)
State of emergency in wake of Easter Sunday attacks grants security forces sweeping powers, sets new media restrictions.
Shortly after a spate of bombings tore through churches and hotels in Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday, the country’s Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe admitted that a top police (...)
Easter Sunday bombings could create new fissures. It marks a turning point because it is the first religion-inspired suicide bombing in Sri Lanka.
The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has claimed responsibility for Sri Lanka’s Easter Sunday massacre. The claim, made more than 48 hours (...)
National Thowheeth Jama’ath blamed but attacks of this scale require huge organisation.
Sri Lankan officials have blamed a small local group called National Thowheeth Jama’ath for the bomb attacks on Sunday. It is unclear whether this assertion is based on new information discovered by (...)
In a recent column, political scientist Jayadeva Uyangoda argues that the polarisation of Sri Lankan politics is based on a battle between democratic and authoritarian forces. The latter is represented by the spectre of Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s presidential candidacy. Uyangoda moves beneath (...)
The current President and Government were elected in 2015 on the promise of repealing the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA). Since enactment in 1979, the PTA has been widely condemned for creating a draconian system featuring special detention and trial procedures for suspects of terrorism. In (...)
The recent discovery of a mass grave in Mannar town in Sri Lanka’s Northern Province has raised fresh questions about the island nation’s history of violence. It has also reopened old wounds and triggered traumatic memories among the survivors of the deadly conflict that ended barely 10 years (...)
The Sirisena-Rajapaksa alliance has to be challenged on principles of democracy and pluralism
Over the past fortnight, Sri Lanka has witnessed an escalating political crisis, with a standoff between President Maithripala Sirisena and the Parliament. After the shocking and undemocratic (...)
More than 10,000 protesting supporters of Sri Lanka’s ousted prime minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe, brought parts of the capital, Colombo, to a standstill on Tuesday.
Colombo: More than 10,000 protesting supporters of Sri Lanka‘s ousted prime minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe, brought parts of the (...)
Alleged past persecution of dissidents could be swept under the carpet if Mahinda Rajapaksa is restored to power
Ayesha Thajudeen was one of the first people on the scene of her brother’s accident. Police said Wasim, a Sri Lankan national rugby player, had crashed his car and burned to death (...)
Health insurance is rapidly breaking into Sri Lanka’s health sector. Last year, the government introduced “Suraksha,” a publicly-financed health insurance scheme to reimburse the (private) healthcare expenses of all school-goers. The government has pledged to double Suraksha’s health benefits in (...)
The decision by organisers of the Jaffna International Cinema Festival to pull a documentary critical of the LTTE out of the festival line up last week stirred controversy and raised questions about freedom of expression in the Northern capital
When organisers of the Jaffna International (...)
The present proposal also raises a fundamental question as to whether, more than nine years after the end of war, Sri Lanka requires anti-terror legislation especially in a context when a multitude of regular laws provide authorities with necessary powers.
Sri Lanka’s near three-decade ethnic (...)
Four weeks after a trade union raised concerns over proposed reforms in the Employees Provident Fund (EPF), on August 8th another group of unions urged the Sri Lankan government to conduct a referendum among workers on the new proposal.
“The undersigned unions strongly urge the Government to go (...)
Coalition government has failed on promise to repeal Prevention of Terrorism Act
Sri Lanka’s progress towards reform has “virtually ground to a halt” and brutal torture is used with impunity, the UN concludes in a scathing report on the country’s human rights record.
The report, which comes three (...)
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