Jaffna Monitor - Unafraid and Unbowed

The Constitution They Promised to Defend

By Sidhartha Thamby There is a particular cruelty in watching a party that once raged against the abuse of power quietly settle into practicing it. Sri Lanka has seen this before. What is new is that we are watching it happen to Provincial Council elections — a decade overdue — and to the constitutional architecture of devolution itself, piece by piece, coordinator by coordinator, committee by committee. We are watching the slow installation of party-aligned coordinators, the bypassing of elec

Sidhartha Thamby

May 27, 2026 — 8 min read

Military Begins Assessments of Occupied Northern Lands, Raising Cautious Hopes

May 2026 Monitor Memo

Our Reporter

May 27, 2026 — 2 min read

Is the Next Pandemic Already Being Mismanaged?

JM Exclusive May 2026

Aruliniyan Mahalingam

May 27, 2026 — 11 min read

THE SACRED AND THE PROFANE

JM Exclusive May 2026

Aruliniyan Mahalingam

May 25, 2026 — 8 min read

Sri Lanka Should Not Import the Middle East’s Hatreds

By: Soraya M Deen Sri Lanka is witnessing the rise of a dangerous ideology disguised as virtue: antizionism that increasingly spills into outright antisemitism. As a Muslim, I find it exhausting and deeply alarming. I have watched its ugly tentacles spread into my homeland thousands of miles away from the Middle East. First, there was hostility toward Israeli tourists visiting Sri Lanka. Then came campaigns against a Chabad house, as if Jewish worship itself was somehow offensive. Now Sri Lan

May 2026 Opinion

Soraya M. Deen

May 27, 2026 — 3 min read

Drug Use Confirmed in Deadly Kilinochchi Motorcycle Crash That Killed Mother

KILINOCHCHI, Sri Lanka — A youth hospitalized after a deadly motorcycle crash that killed a 32-year-old mother in Sri Lanka's Northern Province has admitted to police that he was riding the motorcycle involved in the collision, after initially claiming he had only been traveling as a pillion passenger, police sources told Jaffna Monitor on Tuesday. The crash, which occurred Monday on the Uruthirapuram-Karadipokku road in Kilinochchi district, killed Kagitha Shanmugam, who was on her way to pick

May 2026 Monitor Memo

Our Reporter

May 26, 2026 — 1 min read

The Strait of Hormuz: New Arrangements Under International Law

By: Kazem Gharibabadi, Deputy Foreign Minister for Legal and International Affairs of Iran Prelude For a long period, maritime navigation through the Strait of Hormuz did not proceed on the basis of exercising an asserted right, but rather within the framework of an interaction founded upon comity and mutual good faith. Over years, the Islamic Republic of Iran, as the coastal State, facilitated the passage of vessels through a continuous and peaceful practice. However, this practice was never

Guest Column May 2026

Kazem Gharibabadi

May 26, 2026 — 9 min read

Selective Justice and Sri Lanka’s Unfinished Republic — A Letter to the President

Mr President, As Sri Lanka marked fifty-four years as a Republic a few days ago, it should have been a moment for honest reflection: on sovereignty, on democracy, and on whether this country has truly upheld its promise of equal dignity to all who call it home. It is in that spirit, and with deep disappointment, that I write this. I am an Attorney-at-Law. I am also one of the complainants in the ICCPR case against Ampitiye Sumanarathana Thera, now before the High Court of Batticaloa. And I am

May 2026

Dhanuka Rananjaka Kahandagamage

May 26, 2026 — 6 min read

Unafraid and Unbowed

Archbishop, Archbishop, why hast thou forsaken us in our hour of sorrow and slaughter?

"Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and shew my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins." - Isaiah 58:1 His Eminence Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith, Archbishop of Colombo and chief shepherd of the Catholic flock in all of Sri Lanka, has recently marked fifty years in the sacred priesthood. As the highest-ranking prelate whose dominion spans the entire island, he now stands as a mighty voice crying for justice, calling upon the nations of the earth for interv

Editorial July 2025

Kaniyan Pungundran

Jul 14, 2025 — 12 min read

Jaffna Library Burning: The Day They Burned the buddha and his dhamma

Why South Asia Reveres Books-and Fears Their Destruction Irrespective of religion, across the Indian subcontinent, books have long held an exalted status. In the indigenous spiritual traditions that emerged from this land-Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism-knowledge is not merely valued; it is venerated in the highest order. In homes, temples, and schools across the region, people treat books with profound reverence-never touching them with their feet, and if done accidentally, offering a

Cover Story June 2025

Kaniyan Pungundran

Jun 16, 2025 — 14 min read

Chemmani: Where Justice Was Buried

The dead do not speak - but the earth does A few years ago, I visited Cambodia. My original aim was to see the Angkor Wat temple complex. But, as always, my journalistic instincts led me deeper into rural Cambodia, where I found myself in quiet conversations with a few former soldiers of the Pol Pot regime, now living ordinary lives as toddy tappers, farmers, and small shop owners. One of them - a former henchman of the Khmer Rouge - opened up after a few glasses of toddy. In a hauntingly calm

Editorial June 2025

Kaniyan Pungundran

Jun 16, 2025 — 7 min read

Explore our archive of articles, interviews, and creative projects

Young Mother Dies After Motorcycle Crash With Stunt Rider in Kilinochchi

KILINOCHCHI, Sri Lanka — A 32-year-old mother was killed Sunday when a motorcycle ridden by a youth, allegedly performing dangerous stunts on a public road, struck her motorcycle head-on in Kilinochchi district, in Sri Lanka's Northern Province, police said. The victim, identified as Kagitha Shanmugam, was riding from Uruthirapuram toward Karadipokku to pick up her 7-year-old daughter from school when the crash occurred on the road connecting the two towns. Witnesses described the impact as ho

May 2026 Monitor Memo

Our Reporter

May 25, 2026 — 2 min read

Tamils Caught Between the JVP and Their Traditional Tamil Party Leadership

By M.R. Narayan Swamy “If we have to vote, who should get our vote?” a middle-aged Tamil man asked a friend at a social event in Jaffna. The innocuous query betrayed a sense of confusion that prevails in the minds of many Tamils in Sri Lanka, nearly two years after they jolted the traditional Tamil parties in parliamentary elections almost everywhere. Tamils admit they have always seen the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), the country’s dominant ruling party, as a Sinhala-Buddhist entity. But

Guest Column May 2026

M.R. Narayan Swamy

May 25, 2026 — 5 min read

Death Row Inmate in Vithiya Case Found Hanging in Jaffna Prison

JAFFNA, Sri Lanka — A prisoner sentenced to death in the high-profile 2015 murder of Pungudutivu schoolgirl Sivaloganathan Vithiya died by suicide inside the Jaffna Prison, prison authorities said Monday. The Department of Prisons said the inmate, Poobalasingham Jeyakumar, 46, was found hanging inside the prison on Monday morning. Authorities said an investigation into the death was underway. Jeyakumar was among seven men sentenced to death by the Jaffna High Court in 2017 over the rape and mu

May 2026 Monitor Memo

Our Reporter

May 25, 2026 — 1 min read

Sri Lanka’s War Ended. Its Reckoning Never Began.

By Sidhartha Thamby Every society that has passed through large-scale political violence carries the obligation to reckon with it honestly. That Sri Lanka shares this condition with dozens of other countries is not a reason for complacency — it is a reminder that resolution is possible because others have achieved it, and that failure is not inevitable. More than seventeen years after the Sri Lankan military crushed the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in a brutal final campaign, the country h

Guest Column May 2026

Sidhartha Thamby

May 25, 2026 — 5 min read