Day: 17 July 2020

In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court of Canada has dismissed an appeal by the Quebec Crown for a new trial in the case of a Sri Lankan national who was deported after his murder charge was stayed due to excessive court delays. Sivaloganathan Thanabalasingham, a refugee from Sri Lanka and a permanent resident, was charged in 2012 with the second-degree murder of his 21-year-old wife, Anuja Baskaran. In 2017, Thanabalasingham avoided a trial after he applied for a stay of proceedings on the grounds that his right to be tried within a reasonable time had…

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By J.T. de Silva Election Commission Chairman, Mahinda Deshapriya, said a Buddhist Monk had submitted nominations from two political Parties to contest the 5 August General Election, and asserted that this was unlawful. He said that Ven. Kolonne Sirishantha Vijaya Thera had submitted nominations to contest the coming Poll both on the Ape Janabala Party and the Jana Setha Peramuna ticket from the Ratnapura District. Deshapriya, however, warned that even if the Monk were to be elected, he will not be able to occupy a seat in Parliament. The Ratnapura…

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Overall human rights situation in Sri Lanka in 2019 deteriorated with increased inter-communal tensions, violence against minority groups and intimidation of human rights defenders, a human rights report said. This was mentioned in the ‘Human Rights and Democracy Report-2019’ which was published by the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) on July 16. The report said while Sri Lanka reaffirmed its commitment to post-conflict reconciliation and accountability through its co-sponsorship of UN Human Rights Council Resolution 40/1, delivery on this remained too slow. “Controversial senior appointments called into question Sri Lanka’s commitment…

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ECONOMYNEXT – The United Kingdom will launch and ‘Health and Care Visa’ for Sri Lanka health workers and their families to get fast-track visa’s to work in the National Health Service, the British embassy in Colombo said. “Eligible Sri Lankan nationals, and their immediate family members, will benefit from fast-track visa processing, reduced visa fees and will not have to pay the Immigration Health Surcharge,” the UK High Commission said. The Health and Care Visa, which will be launched formally in the coming months, will create new fast-track visa route…

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By Brian Senewiratne – Dr. Brian Senewiratne The armed forces of Sri Lanka consist of the Army Navy and Air Force. According to the International Institute of Strategic Studies February 2019, “The Military Balance”, the Sri Lankan military has 255,000 active members. This is larger than the United Kingdom (146,390), Israel (168,550), France (203,910), and Saudi Arabia (227,000). PEARL (People for Equality and Relief in Lanka) a Tamil advocacy group based in Washington DC, USA, and ACPR (Adayaalam Centre for Policy Research) a think-tank in Jaffna, Sri Lanka, in an outstanding publication, Normalising…

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By Dayan Jayatilleka – Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka What at issue in this upcoming general election is most transparent and has been rendered so by the ruling party. It is the quest for a two-thirds majority so as to design a new Constitution by a process which is not reliant on smaller parties deemed extremist, and can roll-back the 19th and 13th amendments.   Every single idea contained in this contention is either questionable, illogical, false, dangerous or some mixture of all these. From my perspective, which is that of a political scientist, there isn’t a…

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The United Kingdom has noted that there was a deterioration in the overall human rights situation in Sri Lanka in 2019, with increased intercommunal tensions, violence against minority groups, and intimidation of human rights defenders. Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab tabled in the UK Parliament the 2019 Foreign and Commonwealth Office report on Human Rights and Democracy. The report noted that while Sri Lanka reaffirmed its commitment to post-conflict reconciliation and accountability through its co-sponsorship of UN Human Rights Council Resolution 40/1, delivery on this remained too slow. “Controversial senior appointments…

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By Meera Srinivasan With the campaign for Sri Lanka’s August general election heating up, India and its role in resolving the lingering national question have begun figuring prominently in the election discourse, especially in the Tamil-majority north and east. Addressing a recent public meeting, the Tamil National Alliance’s (TNA) former parliamentarian S. Shritharan said: “India is watching us closely, pointing to inadequacies in our campaign, they tell us you should be a formidable force, and work with hill-country Tamil leaders, only then we [India] will be able to pressure Sri…

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An Agenda to Centralise Power Photo courtesy of asiatimes.com The ruling Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) handsomely won November’s presidential election with 52% of the popular vote and is accordingly the clear favourite and front runner to…

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ByDr.Dayan Jayatilleka An attitude of arrogant myopia; rejection of the outlook of scientific rationality; regarding intelligence-gathering as sufficient and downgrading scientific medical investigation/data collection/analysis (hence the Sri Jayewardenepura pullout); ignoring the Chief Epidemiologist-led, medical specialist-driven, globally acknowledged best practices constituting the managerial model of successful COVID-19 suppression; brusque contradiction of the warnings of the GMOA; a pandemic decisioning and command-and-control hierarchy in which medical expertise comes second to military/ex-military expertise; a personality cult of absurd exaltation (“world’s best anti-corona leadership”); a “Chosen People” ideology and absolutisation of the regime’s regionally…

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