Search Results for: rajapaksa

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) condemned Sri Lankan authorities on Thursday for what it called their failure to uphold accountability and due process in the 2009 extrajudicial killing of investigative journalist Lasantha Wickrematunge, urging decisive action to end the country’s “alarming record of impunity” in journalist killings. CPJ Asia Program Coordinator Beh Lih Yi denounced [...]

Former Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s second son, Yoshitha Rajapaksa, was arrested Saturday on corruption charges, according to local media. He was arrested on the advice of the Attorney General after it was determined that there was sufficient evidence to charge him under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act No. 5 of 2006. Yoshitha Rajapaksa [...]

Sri Lanka elected Anura Kumara Dissanayake as its new president on September 21, marking the first time in the country’s history that a candidate outside the two major political parties has won the presidency. Dissanayake, representing the National People’s Power (NPP) coalition, defeated candidates from the long-dominant United National Party (UNP) and Sri Lanka Freedom [...]

Human Rights Watch reported on Sunday that Sri Lankan authorities are repressing Hindus as well as other religious minorities, calling for a renewed UN resolution in an attempt to counter the oppressive actions of the government. According to the report, authorities in Sri Lanka are denying Hindus and other religious minorities access to places of [...]

Under President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s leadership, the Sri Lankan civil war reached a brutal conclusion on May 18, 2009, ending a 25-year-long conflict between the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a separatist rebel group. Rooted in longstanding grievances, including discriminatory policies against Sri Lanka’s Tamil minority, the conflict saw the [...]

The year 2024 is an important one for Sri Lanka. It is a presidential election year, and a resolution adopted by the UN Human Rights Council to gather evidence of international crimes for use in future prosecutions is due for renewal. After the public ousters of the former-elected President Gotabaya Rajapaksa in 2023, Ranil Wickremesinghe [...]

Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court invalidated on Wednesday, for the first time ever, a presidential pardon to former member of Parliament Duminda Silva. In a unanimous ruling, the court found that there was “no legal basis or even a factual basis to uphold the decision made by” former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to pardon Silva. Silva and [...]

The Supreme Court of Sri Lanka declared Tuesday that several former politicians, including former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, former Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa and former Finance Minister Basil Rajapaksa, breached the public trust and violated Article 12 (1) of the Sri Lankan Constitution in their management of the economy. The bench ruled by a majority of [...]

The Sri Lanka government announced on Wednesday that a special parliamentary committee is to be established to probe allegations made by UK media outlet Channel 4 regarding the complicity of Sri Lanka’s top intelligence official in the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings, which had killed more than 200 people.  The 2019 Easter Sunday attacks involved six [...]

Sri Lanka’s parliament passed on Wednesday an anti-corruption bill designed to strengthen governance and fight corruption in the country’s government. With the passage of the bill, the government is also hopeful to receive economic assistance from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which previously denied Sri Lanka assistance based on their lack of compliance with international [...]