KILINOCHCHI, Sri Lanka- Sivagnanam Shritharan, a senior lawmaker from Sri Lanka’s main Tamil political party, urged the government on Saturday to make an urgent effort to save Sivarasa Anojan, a Sri Lankan Tamil worker reportedly sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia over a Facebook comment about the Prophet Muhammad. Mr. Shritharan said the comment that landed Mr. Anojan in trouble had been written in response to another Sri Lankan social media user who, according to him, had first made a derogat

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — M.A. Sumanthiran said Saturday that two concerns led him to withhold his signature from a joint opposition declaration against Sri Lanka's proposed 22nd Amendment: the document had not been given to him in advance, and his party had reservations about aligning with politicians who had acted against the independence of the judiciary in the past. “The story is not different,” Mr. Sumanthiran, the general secretary of the Ilankai Tamil Arasu Kadchi, or ITAK, wrote in the comme

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Several opposition leaders who attended Thursday’s meeting against Sri Lanka’s proposed 22nd Amendment have disputed published accounts of why M.A. Sumanthiran declined to sign a joint declaration, saying the explanation he gave inside the meeting was that he needed time to consult his party before committing it to the document. Jaffna Monitor reported after the meeting that Mr. Sumanthiran, the general secretary of the Ilankai Tamil Arasu Kadchi, or ITAK, had declined to s

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — The general secretary of Sri Lanka’s main Tamil political party refused on Thursday to sign a joint opposition statement against a proposed constitutional amendment, saying he would not campaign for judicial independence alongside politicians he accused of having undermined it, according to reports in the Tamil-language media. M.A. Sumanthiran, a President's Counsel and the general secretary of the Ilankai Tamil Arasu Kadchi (ITAK) attended a meeting of opposition politicia