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Home » ColumnsSri Lanka faces the ‘gallows’ as political savagery crucifies the nation
Are we a nation of savage beasts that a drunk State Minister, ironically tasked to oversee prisons reforms, can ‘allegedly’ (a caveat that we are duty bound to enter) lurch into the Welikada and Anuradhapura prisons on sight-seeing expeditions to ‘show the gallows’ to his acolytes in one instance and threaten prisoners of Tamil ethnicity [...]
As the word spread; ‘let there be liquor’ ‘civic conscious citizens’ flocked to do their duty!
If one was to go out this week to buy essentials, he or she may wonder whether any sort of lockdown — be it ‘conditional’ as Health Minister Keheliya Rambukwella suggested this week, or a ‘quarantine curfew’ as someone else described it — is effective in the country. Needless to say, the ongoing ‘lockdown’ by [...]
All’s not well in the public service after the 20th Amendment
As a result of the institutional decay that followed the installation of the Executive Presidency in 1978, there have been adverse impacts on the governance structure of the country which in turn impacts on the lives of the people. With an all-powerful individual at the top of the governing hierarchy in the form of an [...]
Behind bars, the new entertainment venue for some
My dear Lohan, I would be shirking my responsibilities if I didn’t write to you this week. A week ago, most people would have said ‘Lohan who?’ if asked about you. Now everyone is talking about you, what you allegedly did in night time visits to prisons and what should be done next. You are [...]
Legal volleys being aimed at elephant release
Multiple legal actions are being prepared to challenge the government’s move to effectively legitimise the keeping of elephants allegedly seized from the wild, and the two court decisions that shore up that move. The Attorney-General’s Department this week defended the two controversial decisions by the Colombo Magistrate Court to release 14 elephants from government care [...]
Lohan’s prison rumpus tightens Govt’s noose
On Monday morn, while UN Human Rights Commissioner Michelle Bachelet in Geneva was firing another scathing salvo on the Lankan Government for repeatedly failing to honour its commitments to human rights, details were emerging in Colombo claiming that the Lankan Minister of Prisons had been busy the night before, working overtime to provide more ammunition [...]
Tough going at Geneva T-20
Thankfully it was only a verbal update on Sri Lanka by United Nations Human Rights High Commissioner Michelle Bachelet. Had it been an extensive report on the country’s performance since the UN human rights body passed a highly critical resolution in March, then Sri Lanka might have well ended up like our struggling cricketers at [...]
Resolving the economic crisis and facing challenges with reforms
“Our country is facing a severe foreign exchange crisis. Data from the Central Bank shows that the country’s net foreign exchange reserves are close to zero, which means almost all of its reserves are borrowed.” The significance of this statement to Parliament by Mr. Basil Rajapaksa, the Finance Minister, on September 7, lay not on [...]
Lack of strategy puts Sri Lanka in Geneva quagmire
Sri Lankans let down by Foreign Ministry’s failure to respond effectively to the UNHRC chief’s charges Bachelet declares Council has an information and evidence repository of 120,000 items regarding human rights violations Govt. falls back on former administration’s human rights achievements to show progress Cardinal alleges PM tries to mislead Pope, but Papal diary shows [...]
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