Author: Edi tor

As a responsible media outlet, we continue to focus on the obligation to make reconciliation a reality. This time, took up that topic with Nawa Sama Samaja Party leader Dr. Vikramabahu Karunaratne.   Spreading hatred is planned   None of the acts that disrupt reconciliation, national unity are their own making. They are the results […]

Deep Division Within Joint Opposition Over No Confidence Motion Against Prime Minister With MP’s Ramesh Pathirana,Nimal Lanza,Prasanna Ranatunge and Kumara Welgama Criticising the Move. Posted by Administrator on 21 March 2018, 12:35 am By Saman Indrajith The Joint Opposition (JO) parliamentary group members are divided on the no-faith motion against Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe. There were heated arguments […]

TGTE has chosen to do an assessment of the level to which those 25 commitments undertaken by Sri Lanka have been implemented. Five grading system has been used GENEVA, SWITZERLAND, March 20, 2018 /EINPresswire.com/ — HERE IS THE LINK TO THE REPORT CARD: https://en.calameo.com/read/0003415029906023b06da In September 2015, the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) passed by consensus […]

The ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka has its origins in the claims of the right to self-determination by the Tamils. The Sinhalese, who see the grant of any autonomy as a serious violation of the sovereignty of the Sri Lankan state, have consistently refuted this claim. For years, peace negotiations were seriously hampered by the […]

by D.B.S.Jeyaraj * About 200 Youths From “”Diga Kalliya” (Group of Diga)Unleashed Violence(Diga derived from Digamadulla)* Sinhala Hardliner Ex-MP Had Meetings With youths and Police officials in Amparai Before Violence * Mosque and Office, 3 Eateries,1 Grocery Store, 8 Vehicles Damaged in Night of Terror in Amparai Town * 35 Persons From Mob Identified;5 Surrender;6 Arrested &4 Remanded;Police File […]

It was just a road rage!  Two vehicles end up at a petrol station after one was prevented from overtaking the other on a narrow road in the Central Province of Sri Lanka.  Soon, a verbal dispute escalates into a physical altercation. Many such disputes end peacefully and some others with verbal abuse of each […]

Damning evidence proving the brutality of Sri Lanka’s British trained elite police commandos against Muslim religious leaders have surfaced a day before the UN human rights body debates the country’s human rights record. Video footage obtained by JDS shows Special Task Force (STF) members in uniform assaulting two Muslim men with clubs at a time of […]

The signing of Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) and Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in February 2002 engineered many prospects, promises and hopes about many burning issues.  Among them, the fate of political prisoners, prisoners of war and the disappeared were also vital. They were not just limited […]

On March 21, 2018 the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights will provide an oral update to the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) on the human rights situation in Sri Lanka and the status on the commitments contained in UNHRC Resolution 30/1 which was adopted in October 2015 and extended by Resolution 34/1 […]

Global Sri Lanka Forum protest in Geneva on March 18. Former navy Chief of Staff Rear Admiral Sarath Weerasekera and Nalaka Godahewa are among those present (pic courtesy GSLF) By Shamindra Ferdinando Geneva-based United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) meets thrice every year in regular sessions – in Feb.-March, June, and Sept. The ongoing 37th […]

A high-level Sri Lankan delegation heads to Geneva tomorrow, where it will attempt to show progress on its human rights commitments, amid mounting calls for more political will to implement reconciliation and accountability measures set out in UNHRC Resolution 30/1 that the country co-sponsored in September 2015. In Geneva, Sri Lanka will unveil a host […]

It was around 2005 or 2006 when the “MiG Deal” as it was called broke out through The Sunday Times written by it’s Defence Columnist Iqbal Athas bringing the story into focus. This initial article was followed up with The Sunday Leader going into further detail into this “Deal” laying the blame squarely on the then Secretary to Ministry of Defence Gotabaya […]

KILINOCHCHI: Inside the makeshift tent by a dusty roadside in Kilinochchi, an elderly woman, Kulasinhan Sagunthalai, says, seeing her daughter again is her only remaining desire. “She is my only child.” Sagunthalai was separated from her daughter in 2009, during the final stages of war, at Mullivaikkal.” Security forces separated the parents and children of […]

No-confidence motion against Prime Minister: Another political crisis waiting to happen Strong undercurrents are once again rocking the shaky relations between the two coalition partners — the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) and the United National Party (UNP). This is notwithstanding a deceptive lull and momentary distractions. They were caused first by the ethnic violence […]

“Sri Lanka agreeing to a well-defined, time-bound action plan for simultaneous operation of all transitional justice processes should be the top priority for the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC),” says the Global Tamil Forum (GTF) “As Sri Lankan issues will be taken up at the UNHRC next week, the GTF would like to highlight the following for the […]

by C.A.Chandraprema Even though there is supposed to be an ongoing police investigation into the 2009 murder of Sunday Leader Editor Lasantha Wickrematunga,  what we have been seeing for the most part is a series of investigations and arrests in relation to various matters on the sidelines of the murder. One of the first persons […]

Sri Lanka’s national television network opens a new channel dedicated to Tamil culture, identity and religion. For some it is “useless” because it cannot be understood in the south; for others it is “a positive effort” because today’s Tamil youth have abandoned their culture in favour of “Western styles”. Colombo (AsiaNews) – The Sri Lankan […]

Reconciliation’ is a popular word in Colombo politics, touted by government leaders and NGO activists   There are “two opposite beliefs and ideas” that came to be gradually embedded in Sinhala- Buddhist and Tamil societies   Yet unlike a broken egg, broken societies can be mended without scars   This country cannot afford to slip […]

By Sarath De Alwis – Sarath De Alwis “If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear” ~  George Orwell Memory’s struggle against forgetting A specter is haunting our land. It is the specter of a Gotabaya RajapaksaPresidency in 2020. We have forgotten how we feared Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s […]

There is a potential threat of domestic terrorism of a new type. The excellent choice for Minister of Law and Order, Ranjith Madduma Bandara, and the Defence authorities under President Sirisena and Ruwan Wijewardene must coordinate to face this new, existential threat. It was on March 3rd, after Ampara but just before Teldeniya, that an […]