Special Focus
  • Human Rights in Sri Lanka

    The Sri Lankan government failed to advance justice for the victims of the country’s 26-year-long civil war in 2011. While Sri Lanka’s war-ravaged North and East became more open, the government deepened repression of basic freedoms, notably limiting the right to free speech. The long-awaited Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission report on the fighting failed to call for investigations into well-documented allegations of violations of international humanitarian law. The government largely ignored complaints of insecurity and land grabbing. The Tamil population in the North benefitted from greater access by humanitarian and local human rights groups and the media, but inadequate steps were taken to normalize their living conditions.

    Available in Sinhalese >>

  • A member of the Free Media Association shouts slogans in front of an image of missing cartoonist and columnist Prageeth Eknaligoda during a protest in Colombo June 8, 2011. The protest was held to mark 500 days since the disappearance of Eknaligoda, a pro-opposition journalist who worked for Lanka-e-News, a private-owned independent website that was critical of the government. The placard reads "500 days since Prageeth's disappearance."
    © 2011 Reuters
    Sri Lanka: Reveal Fate of ‘Disappeared’ Cartoonist
    Sri Lankan authorities should challenge a parliamentarian’s claim as to the whereabouts of a political cartoonist who was forcibly disappeared in 2010 and provide information on his fate.
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Sri Lanka

  • Way to Stem Tide of Human Misery is Help Indonesia
    Jun 24, 2013
    Arif was only 15 when he fled Afghanistan, without his parents, and paid smugglers to take him to Indonesia. There, he was detained for months in sordid, overcrowded immigration detention facilities where the guards beat him. When he got out, he felt he had no options in Indonesia, so he risked the boat journey to Australia.
  • Human Rights Watch Daily Brief, 19 June
    Jun 19, 2013
  • Sri Lanka: Proposed Media Code Threatens Free Speech
    Jun 18, 2013
    A new media code proposed by the Sri Lankan government contains overbroad and vague language that could have a severe and chilling effect on free speech.
  • Sri Lanka: Reveal Fate of ‘Disappeared’ Cartoonist
    Jun 9, 2013
    Sri Lankan authorities should challenge a parliamentarian’s claim as to the whereabouts of a political cartoonist who was forcibly disappeared in 2010 and provide information on his fate.
  • Sri Lanka: No Progress 4 Years On
    May 20, 2013
    Respect for basic rights and liberties has declined in Sri Lanka in the four years since the government defeated the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
  • Sri Lanka: Commonwealth Should Relocate November Meeting
    Apr 24, 2013
    A senior Commonwealth advisory group should recommend the organization shift the venue of its November 2013 Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) from Sri Lanka unless the government makes prompt, measurable, and meaningful progress on human rights.
  • The Sun Rises on Human Rights
    Apr 12, 2013
    As U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry arrives in Japan, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is making waves.
  • Urgent need for visible rights reform
    Apr 9, 2013

    President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s recent Walk the Talk on the Indian news channel NDTV was illuminating. He claimed that the now-defeated Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) had planned to take over all of Sri Lanka — not just the areas claimed for an independent Tamil nation — but that LTTE leader V. Prabhakaran “wanted the whole country.”

  • UAE: Don’t Deport Tamil Refugees to Sri Lanka
    Apr 6, 2013
    United Arab Emirates (UAE) authorities should not deport 19 Tamil refugees to Sri Lanka because they would be at serious risk of torture and persecution upon return. The United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) has recognized all 19 as refugees, but the UAE authorities have told the group they must leave the country by April 11, 2013.
  • Sri Lanka: Probe into LTTE Crimes Should Start with Karuna
    Mar 28, 2013
    The Sri Lankan government should act on the call by a government deputy minister to investigate war crimes by examining his own role in serious abuses.
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