Jaffna Monitor - Unafraid and Unbowed

Police Arrest Gnanasara Thero at Forest Monastery After Court No-Shows

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka: Sri Lankan police on Saturday arrested Galagoda Aththe Gnanasara Thero, the general secretary of the Buddhist nationalist group Bodu Bala Sena, at a forest monastery in the Thiniyawala area of Kalutara District. Two courts issued warrants for his arrest this week after he failed to appear. The Colombo Crimes Division made the arrest on an outstanding court warrant, the police media spokesperson said. The monk had not been seen in public for most of the past weeks. After the

Our Reporter

Oct 3, 2026 — 3 min read

Inside the Terrifying Moments Passengers Fought to Save Flight 1073

October 2026

Jaffna Monitor

Oct 3, 2026 — 6 min read

Judges Judging Their Own Tenure: The Constitutional Questions Raised by 22A

Guest Column OP-ED

Professor G. L. Peiris

Oct 3, 2026 — 10 min read

Pazha Nedumaran's Son, Who Became a Buddhist Monk, Dies in Melbourne at 57

JM Exclusive Obituary

Our Reporter

Oct 1, 2026 — 1 min read

Iranian Tankers Stranded Off Sri Lanka as U.S. Sanctions Squeeze Supplies

COLOMBO: Sri Lanka's Foreign Ministry said this week that American warnings against servicing sanctioned Iranian tankers anchored off the island apply to every country, after The Wall Street Journal reported that Washington had pressed the government to cut off food, fuel and water to the ships. The Journal reported on Sept. 30 that about 20 empty Iranian oil tankers were drifting roughly 15 miles off Sri Lanka's southwest coast with their engines idled, and that their food, fuel and fresh wate

Monitor Memo

Our Reporter

Oct 3, 2026 — 4 min read

Court of Appeal Dismisses Gotabaya Rajapaksa's Petition Seeking Protection From PTA Arrest

COLOMBO: The Court of Appeal on Thursday (October 1) dismissed, without taking it up for hearing, a writ petition filed by former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa seeking an order preventing his arrest and detention under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) in connection with investigations into the 2019 Easter Sunday attacks. The order was delivered by a two-judge bench comprising Court of Appeal President Justice Rohantha Abeysuriya and Justice Sarath Dissanayake after considering submissions m

JM COURTS

Our Reporter

Oct 1, 2026 — 2 min read

Cameraman Arrested After Clash With Ranil Wickremesinghe's Security Officer

COLOMBO: A television cameraman was arrested on Thursday after a police officer assigned to former President Ranil Wickremesinghe's security detail alleged that the cameraman struck him on the head with a camera outside a Colombo court. The incident took place on Wednesday near the main entrance of the Colombo Fort Magistrate's Court as Wickremesinghe was leaving after a hearing in a case concerning the alleged misuse of public funds for a trip to Britain. Video footage recorded by journalists

September 2026

Our Reporter

Oct 1, 2026 — 1 min read

Japan Gives $447,000 for Demining in Northern Sri Lanka

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Japan has provided more than $447,000 for a new demining project in northern Sri Lanka, where land mines and unexploded ordnance from the civil war still restrict resettlement and economic activity more than 17 years after the fighting ended. The $447,432 grant, equivalent to about 148 million Sri Lankan rupees, will finance humanitarian demining by the Skavita Humanitarian Assistance and Relief Project, known as SHARP, according to the Japanese Embassy in Colombo. Akio Is

September 2026

Our Reporter

Sep 30, 2026 — 2 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

Aruliniyan Mahalingam

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

Court Orders Arrest of Gnanasara Thero

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Sri Lanka’s Court of Appeal has ordered the arrest of Galagoda Aththe Gnanasara Thero, the general secretary of the hard-line Buddhist organization Bodu Bala Sena, after he failed to appear in court in proceedings concerning a contempt-of-court sentence from which he had previously been released by a presidential pardon. A two-judge bench comprising Justices Mayadunne Corea and Lakmali Karunanayake issued the warrant on Tuesday, Sept. 29, directing the inspector general of

September 2026

Our Reporter

Sep 30, 2026 — 2 min read

Supreme Court Orders Fowzie to Pay Millions — and Apologize to the Public

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court ordered a former cabinet minister on Tuesday to pay about 6.6 million rupees to the state and publicly apologize after finding that his use of a government vehicle for personal purposes violated the constitutional right to equality. A.H.M. Fowzie, a veteran politician who served in several ministerial positions, was ordered to pay 1,664,334.93 rupees within one month to reimburse expenses associated with the vehicle and an additional 5 million rupe

September 2026

Our Reporter

Sep 29, 2026 — 2 min read

Douglas Devananda Demands Rs. 100 Million From Uthayan Over Report on Police Questioning

JAFFNA, Sri Lanka — Douglas Devananda, a former Sri Lankan cabinet minister and longtime Tamil political leader, has demanded 100 million rupees in damages from the Tamil-language newspaper Uthayan, accusing it of publishing a false and defamatory account of his recent questioning by investigators. The demand follows an inquiry last week in which Sri Lanka’s Criminal Investigation Department questioned Mr. Devananda over statements made by Hanzeer Azad Maulana, a former aide to Sivanesathurai C

September 2026

Our Reporter

Sep 29, 2026 — 3 min read

What the Court Found: How 15 Men Helped Pave the Way for Sri Lanka’s Easter Sunday Bombings

By Aruliniyan Mahalingam When a special three-judge High Court in Colombo convicted 15 men on Sept. 22 over the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings, the indictment before it contained 23,270 counts. The judgment describes how the convicted men trained recruits in weapons and religious ideology, collected explosives and rented houses that were later found to hold bomb-making materials. Two of them, the court found, admitted a man injured in a test explosion to a Colombo hospital under a false name in Au

JM Exclusive September 2026

Aruliniyan Mahalingam

Sep 29, 2026 — 10 min read