SRI LANKA

I firmly believe in the opinion expressed by MP Harin Fernando, that religions are being used by politicians to gain cheap votes and, no doubt, we say this is the cause for the ever worsening rifts among communities in Sri Lanka. An Indian national leader recently said ‘In search of …

The Easter Sunday attack report includes many great Islamic personalities in the questionable ‘extremist’ list. The works of Hassan ul Banna, Seyyed Qutb, Maulana Abul A’la Maudoodi, Dr. Zakir Naik are available in well documented format. Why did the Commission fail to quote from the original source, the authors themselves, …

For the first time in more than a thousand year history, the island’s Muslim community has been persecuted since the end of the ethnic war in May 2009. It has become worse ever since eight so called Muslim parliamentarian voted for 20th amendment and gave wide powers to the president.  However …

What happened in Sri Lanka on that black Easter Sunday 2019, in a series of well-orchestrated and coordinated terror attacks on churches and other locations, which killed more than 260 innocent souls and injuring many more, was an unforgivable and brutal tragedy of catastrophic proportions. As the nation marks another anniversary of …

Fishing is one of the main industries on the island.(Supplied: Renuka Senanayake) As a small child, Shreen Abdul Saroor remembers getting up before dawn with her father to spy on the masses of migratory birds that would visit her island. The birds were on their way down the Central Asian …

(Speech delivered in Sri Lankan parliament by Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam, 25 Mar 2021) I thank you honourable presiding member, I thank you for allocating some time to speak under this adjournment debate. Many members have been saying various things with regards to the Easter bombings, with regards to the commission and …

 new UN resolution on Sri Lanka is an important step forward and offers renewed hope of long-awaited justice for victims of the country’s 30-year civil conflict, said Amnesty International, following its adoption by the Human Rights Council (UNHRC) today.  The resolution not only ramps up international monitoring and scrutiny of the human rights situation in Sri Lanka, but also mandates the UN human rights office to collect, consolidate and preserve evidence for …

A Sri Lankan Muslim girl Editorial credit: Melih Cevdet Teksen / Shutterstock.com Sri Lanka’s Muslim community has been under the spotlight in recent years due to Colombo’s discriminatory policies. In this feature, we take a look at the long history of Muslims in Sri Lanka which began in relative harmony …

The government’s ethnic relations, driven by ideological compulsions of the ultra-nationalist pole bearers have done immense damage to Sri Lanka’s image in the Muslim world Sri Lanka’s current troubles of the UNHRC are also a result of its own making when it chose to give the middle finger to the …

The country is facing difficult challenges due to internal and external pressures which is increasing the level of frustration within society. The Covid-generated economic downturn, fallout of the Easter bombing investigation, sugar tax scam and impending UNHRC resolution on Sri Lanka need to be dealt with sagaciously. These challenges can …