Photo courtesy of Al Arabiya The global spread of COVID-19 has been accompanied by a deeply troubling rise of stigma. Stigma related to COVID-19 included stereotyping, blaming and ostracizing groups or individuals that were infected or associated with the disease. This pattern of stigmatization has been fueled by political rhetoric, inequity, and mistrust. Many of these stem from legacies of ...
Photo courtesy of Mirak Raheem August 30 is marked across much of the world as the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances. For the families and the friends of the disappeared and human rights groups working on the issue in countries such as Sri Lanka, which have experienced large scale disappearances, it provides an opportunity to remind those ...
Today of the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances “Sri Lanka has the world’s second-highest number of cases registered with the United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances. Since the 1980s, an estimated 60,000 to 100,000 people from all ethnic and religious communities have “disappeared.” “Many victims are believed to have been abducted, tortured, and killed ...
Image Courtesy of Global Press Journal In early 2021, a survey conducted by the International Food Policy Research Institute, found that farmers faced food insecurity as a result of the measures that had been put into place to curb the spread of Covid-19. Of the farmers surveyed in the published findings, usual crop cultivation and farming was affected to the ...
Photo courtesy FT After many years of being a politician in various capacities, J.R. Jayewardene had come to the conclusion that if he could rule all by himself without any restraints, he could do a better job than others had done in the past. An opportunity for this came when in the 1977 election, people gave his party an overwhelming ...
Photo courtesy of FT “The most sacred laws of justice are the laws which guard the life and person of our neighbor” Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments After nearly ten months of refusing a lockdown, bowing to pressure from medical professionals, politicians and trade associations who closed their businesses, as well as the failure of travel restrictions to control ...
Photo courtesy of UNFPA *Sandamali is 26 weeks pregnant but she doesn’t yet know the sex of her unborn child. She lives in Bodagama with her husband and her two children, where healthcare facilities are at a bare minimum. With the nearest hospital over an hour’s distance away in Hambantota, it has been extremely challenging to make the trip to ...
Photo courtesy of Sister-hood At two meetings held on March 8 and April 29 the Cabinet approved reforms to the Muslim Marriage and Divorce Act (MMDA). The reforms will make 18 years the minimum age for lawful marriage, mandate the bride to place her signature on the marriage registration certificate, bar polygamy and to do away with the Quazi court ...
Photo courtesy of The Conversation August 22 is the International Day Commemorating Victims of Acts of Violence Based on Religion or Belief established by the United Nations. In Sri Lanka, there is continuous persecution of religious minorities. The Easter Sunday attacks in 2019 and the Covid 19 pandemic have intensified this persecution. This politicisation of religious identity has a significant ...
Photo courtesy of News Hunt “When the merit-laden Motherland wants (me), why do I need the citizenship of another country? I will abandon all honours and will return Mother, to (undertake) the endeavour of protecting you.” An internet poster by Viyath Maga, hailing Gotabaya Rajapaksa candidacy, September 2019 President Gotabaya Rajapaksa addressed the nation on the day Sri Lanka became ...
Photo courtesy of Namal Kamalgoda Sri Lanka’s country statement to the 21st Conference of the Parties (known as COP21) to the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change held in Paris in 2015 stated, “We are aware that the critical Ecosystem services such as production of Oxygen, sequestering of Carbon, water cycling and ambient cooling is carried out by the photosynthetic ...
Photo courtesy of Sunday Times Today is International Day Commemorating the Victims of Acts of Violence Based on Religion or Belief In October 1990, The LTTE ordered some 75,000 Muslims in the Jaffna peninsula to leave their homes within 48 hours; they were allowed to take Rs. 300 and some clothes. “Every story of ethnic cleansing is heart breaking. Some ...
Photo courtesy of BBC Sri Lanka’s country statement to the 21st Conference of the Parties (known as COP21) to the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change held in Paris in 2015 stated, “We are aware of the great difference in carbon dioxide that is emitted from biological sources and carbon dioxide emitted from fossil sources. One has sequestered rates ...
Photo courtesy of Ruki Fernando On August 20, 2006, Father Jim Brown, a Catholic Priest, and Wenceslaus Vimalathas, his associate, disappeared. They were last seen at a Navy check point in Allaipiddy in the Jaffna district while they were going to visit displaced civilians in the Navy controlled village. August was a tragic month for Allaipiddy. On the night August ...
Photo courtesy of Facebook “The most sacred laws of justice are the laws which guard the life and person of our neighbour.” Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments According to the Worldometer’s data on August 14, the percent change in deaths per week in Sri Lanka due to COVID has increased by 58%, currently the highest in the world, and every ...
Photo courtesy of Sri Lanka Mirror In 1979 an official communique displayed in the news media proclaimed, “No oil means no development and less oil less development. It is oil that keeps the wheels of development moving.” But today we know that the burning of fossil fuels is the primary cause of current climate change, altering the earth’s ecosystems and damaging human and ...
Photo courtesy of Global Risk Insights “This ain’t a technological highway, it’s just the road to hell.” Chris Rea Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result is the definition of madness. So I venture again into the realm of madness and once more try to warm the public of the harm that politicians and ...
Photo courtesy Vasi Samudra Devi About 10 days ago, a video surfaced online of an unmasked and ungloved policeman stopping and arresting some men in a trishaw on a road in the dead of night. Among these men was none other than IUSF convener and speaker Wasantha Mudalige, well-known student activist and figure that the author has seen and heard ...
Photo courtesy of WSWS The people of Sri Lanka, like those in several other countries, are learning that their past could cost them their lives and the lives of their loved ones and those of many others. Covid-19 seems to be mocking them. It seems to ask “Can’t you find someone among yourself who is capable of stopping me.“ The ...
Photo courtesy of The Hindu President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, approximately a third of the way into his term of office, carried out the most significant mid term cabinet reshuffle in recent Sri Lankan political history. The closest in scale and scope was about 18 years ago when President Chandrika Kumaratunga arrogated to herself the ministries of Defence and Internal Security and ...
