Sri Lankan Guide Shoved Off Boat Calls the Outrage ‘Fake News’
The Sri Lankan boat guide, Senura Rashmika, with the group of Israeli tourists on the day of the incident. Photo via BBC Sinhala

Sri Lankan Guide Shoved Off Boat Calls the Outrage ‘Fake News’

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — The Sri Lankan boat guide seen being shoved into the sea by an Israeli tourist, in a video that drew outrage across the country, says the episode was a game among friends and has asked the public to stop making an issue of it. “A small thing happened. Don’t make it big,” the guide, Senura Rashmika, says in a video he recorded after the incident, according to BBC Sinhala, which obtained the clip from his brother. “I’m the one who pushed them. This is fake news. They have bee


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Police Tell Court Army Has Failed to Respond in Mandaitivu Disappearances Inquiry
Photographs of young men from Mandaitivu, Allaipiddy and Mankumban who disappeared after being detained by the Sri Lankan Army in August and September 1990.

Police Tell Court Army Has Failed to Respond in Mandaitivu Disappearances Inquiry

JAFFNA: Police investigating an alleged mass grave on Mandaitivu, an island off the Jaffna Peninsula, told a court on Tuesday that the Sri Lankan Army had not answered their request for information about its presence on the island in 1990. Families say dozens of young Tamil men were detained by soldiers on Mandaitivu that year and never seen again. The police had asked the army for records showing whether it maintained a camp at the site named in the complaint, and for the names of officers sta


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Jaffna Marks 20 Years Since Raviraj’s Assassination as His Case Heads for Retrial

Jaffna Marks 20 Years Since Raviraj’s Assassination as His Case Heads for Retrial

JAFFNA: Family members, politicians and activists gathered in Chavakachcheri on Tuesday to mark 20 years since the assassination of Nadarajah Raviraj, a Tamil member of Parliament who was shot dead in Colombo in 2006. No one has been convicted of the killing. Mourners garlanded his statue and scattered flowers at the Maamanithar Raviraj Memorial Square, in front of the Chavakachcheri Divisional Secretariat. His widow, Sasikala Raviraj, attended with other family members. The anniversary comes


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Sri Lanka’s Drift Toward a Popular Autocracy

Sri Lanka’s Drift Toward a Popular Autocracy

By Sunanda Deshapriya Sri Lanka's history demonstrates how laws enacted in the name of security and public order can evolve into instruments that extend far beyond their original purpose. The Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) became synonymous with arbitrary detention, torture allegations, and the suppression of political dissent. Today, a new generation of legislation is being introduced against a backdrop where accountability for past abuses remains limited and public confidence in law enforc


Sunanda Deshapriya

Sunanda Deshapriya

UNAFRAID AND UNBOWED

The Long Warning: Inside the Intelligence Trail That Preceded Easter Bombings
Zahran Hashim and other men pledge allegiance to Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi before the 2019 Easter Sunday attacks.

The Long Warning: Inside the Intelligence Trail That Preceded Easter Bombings

By Aruliniyan Mahalingam JAFFNA — On the evening of April 20, 2019, a man at his home in Puthukudiyiruppu took a WhatsApp call from an Indian police officer. The call came sometime between 5:15 and 5:45 p.m. The officer asked him an odd question: where were Sri Lanka's major churches? The man named the ones that came to mind. The Madhu shrine. St. Anthony's at Kochchikade in Colombo. The Tewatta church at Ragama. Then the officer told him that Zahran Hashim's group was preparing to strike Cat


Aruliniyan Mahalingam

Aruliniyan Mahalingam

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

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


Kaniyan Pungundran

Kaniyan Pungundran

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

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


Aruliniyan Mahalingam

Aruliniyan Mahalingam

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Measles Breaks Out in Colombo Prisons

Measles Breaks Out in Colombo Prisons

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Sri Lanka's Department of Prisons has stopped sending inmates from three Colombo prisons to court after measles was confirmed among detainees, the department's spokesman said. No inmates from the Colombo Remand Prison, Magazine Prison or Welikada Prison were produced in court on Monday, Senaka Pallethenna, a commissioner of prisons and the department's media spokesman, said. The department has notified the courts concerned in writing, and the suspension is temporary, he sai


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Out on Bail Before Doctor’s Alleged Rape, Freed Again Afterward, Former Soldier Is Back in Custody

Out on Bail Before Doctor’s Alleged Rape, Freed Again Afterward, Former Soldier Is Back in Custody

ANURADHAPURA, Sri Lanka – A former soldier on trial for raping a doctor inside her official quarters at Anuradhapura Teaching Hospital has been arrested again after a security camera recorded him climbing into a house in Galnewa through a bathroom window, police said. Police have asked the court to revoke his bail. K.B. Madhuranga Ratnayake, 35, known locally as "Bunty," was taken into custody by Galnewa police on the night of Nov. 6. Police said the footage showed him entering through the wind


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Japan Highlights Drone Aid to Sri Lanka’s Navy as Security Ties Grow

Japan Highlights Drone Aid to Sri Lanka’s Navy as Security Ties Grow

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Japan’s ambassador to Sri Lanka on Thursday highlighted plans to supply unmanned aerial vehicles to the Sri Lanka Navy and a new exchange programme for military personnel. Both are part of a security relationship that Tokyo has widened over the past year. The ambassador, Akio Isomata, described the initiatives at a reception the Japanese Embassy in Colombo held for the 72nd anniversary of the founding of Japan’s Self-Defense Forces. Guests included Sri Lanka’s deputy defenc


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“We Had Planned Our Wedding for April”
Anne Laksha Ignatius with her fiancé, Niroshan Arumainayagam.

“We Had Planned Our Wedding for April”

On Oct. 5, Niroshan Arumainayagam was on the telephone from Switzerland with the woman he was going to marry. Anne Laksha Ignatius was telling him about the trouble a former student had been causing her. Then, he says, she heard shouting, told him she would go and see what was happening, and the call was cut off. She did not call back. Ms. Ignatius, a culinary and hospitality instructor born in 1994, was stabbed to death that evening at her family’s home on Temple Road in Nallur, Jaffna. Her mo


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