Europe Solidaire Sans Frontières
Open letter to President Gotabaya Rajapaksa
We write to draw your attention to the serious situation faced by the 4.3 million student population in this country since March 2020 when the pandemic first appeared. There has not been any education for them in the last 15 months except for a few (...)
“So, it seems to me that despite so many decisions, torture at police stations continues unabated, in utter contempt of fundamental rights guaranteed by the Constitution’ ”: Justice Kulatunga
During the period March 2020 to 24 June 2021 there were reports of six cases of encounter killings, 27 (...)
In addition to TV programmes such as “Guru Gedera” broadcast through Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation, the Ministers said virtual classrooms have already been introduced through the E-thaksalawa programme
“Minister Peiris said only 12 per cent do not receive online education. Whoever the (...)
Both Sinhala nationalists and followers of liberal peace base their analysis of post-war Sri Lanka as a country that has ended a violent phase of its history, and now it is time to focus on other political objectives. For Sinhala nationalists, we need to end all talk of identity politics and (...)
After 12 days, the ship MV X-Press Pearl finally sank about 9.5 nautical miles from the Colombo harbour. It has not sunk fully because it is touching a coral bed. The ship had been burning from May 20; an explosion six days later brought disaster in the form of small white plastic pellets (...)
Does the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) keep us safe? How often is it misused? Does it cause unjust suffering to people? If it does cause suffering, how much suffering are we as a society willing to barter for a sense of security? Whose suffering do we barter? What gives us a sense of (...)
Sri Lanka’s admired initial coordinated response to the COVID-19 pandemic is now a distant memory. The second wave that multiplied from the Brandix factory in Minuwangoda should have sounded a warning to the militarized COVID-19 Task Force. However, they failed to take occupational health issues (...)
Spotlight on minority rights, and ‘draconian’ anti-terrorism law modelled on South Africa’s Apartheid-era legislation
Daily-wage agricultural labourer Abdul Ghafoor Muhammadhu Jazeem, in Sri Lanka’s northern Mannar district, had one life goal. To ensure his children have a good education. Despite (...)
Press Statement of Left Voice (Sri Lanka)
The May Day celebrations have been banned, in another step in the government’s crackdown on political opposition. Taking cover of the current Novel Coronavirus epidemic situation, the Army Commander has summoned political parties and stated that they (...)
Resilient is a word frequently used by human rights activists and the development sector, to describe persons affected by war and violence. In Sri Lanka, the mothers of the disappeared are praised for their resilience when they continue their struggle for justice despite intimidation and (...)
Systematic effort to change Tamil areas’ demographics, alleges Batticaloa MP Shanakiyan Rasamanickam.
Over the last few months, farmers of Mavadi Odai in Sri Lanka’s eastern Batticaloa district frequently spotted something crop up on their land overnight — a border stone they had not planted. (...)
There are a number of entrenched beliefs which have become institutional doctrines within the policing system which contribute to the continuing practice of torture.
No suspect will ever tell the truth. Therefore, it is better not to waste time asking questions before torturing the person. (...)
It is democratic struggle within Sri Lanka, rather than advocacy in Geneva, that will put an end to this dangerous trajectory
The Hindu : The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva has passed another resolution on Sri Lanka, as war-time accountability continues to haunt the (...)
The various Tamil movements that emerged in Sri Lanka in the 1970s ranged across a broad political spectrum, whether inspired by Marxist ideology or by the Tamil ethnic-nationalism espoused by parties like the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). By the late 1980s, members of these Tamil (...)
Rumbling public discontent from its once uncritical bastions should give the Sri Lankan Government pause. Myanmar’s point must be reiterated; desperate human beings have no limit to their defiance.
‘Get out Russia, get out China’ said the placards of Civil Disobedience activists in Myanmar as (...)
Since the end of the war in 2009, every year, come January, February, the Sri Lankan Government starts scrambling to respond to the Human Rights Council sessions in Geneva. Once the sessions are over, other priorities take over. This has been the cycle for the past 12 years. Yet, problems on (...)
The 46th session of the Human Rights Council is set to begin next week.
In the nearly 12 years since her husband surrendered to the Sri Lankan Army, E. Sumathra has seen many sessions of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva come and go. Half a dozen resolutions on Sri Lanka have been adopted (...)
There has been a great deal of turmoil in Indian and Sri Lankan politics over a statement made by Biplam Kumar Deb, the Chief Minister of Thripur, in a meeting last week. He had told that Amith Sha, the President of the BJP has stated at a meeting of BJP leaders that the party was planning to (...)
In January 2020, Sri Lanka’s president confirmed what many already feared: that more than 20,000 people who disappeared during the country’s civil war were dead. They were among the victims of the repression of the Tamil Tigers in May 2009. The Tigers’ defeat ended, for now, 26 years of military (...)
From rats, cockroaches and mosquitoes to ill-lit overcrowded cells, muddy kitchens infested with flies and shopping bags used as makeshift toilets in the night, HRCSL study exposes inhuman, nauseous and ghastly conditions inside the country’s jails Survey shows detention conditions are far below (...)
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