Jaffna Monitor - Unafraid and Unbowed

Sivarasa Anojan Suffers Head Injuries in Reported Attack on Saudi Death Row

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — A Sri Lankan migrant worker sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia over a Facebook comment deemed insulting to the Prophet Muhammad has been attacked by other inmates and suffered head injuries, according to an activist assisting his family. Sivarasa Anojan, a Tamil from Natpiddimunai, near Kalmunai in Sri Lanka's Eastern Province, was sentenced to death last month after a Saudi appeals court replaced an earlier five-year prison term. The Sri Lankan government has since begun d

Our Reporter

Oct 5, 2026 — 3 min read

Four Summoned Over Thileepan Bust That Apparently Installed Itself

October 2026

Our Reporter

Oct 5, 2026 — 4 min read

Man Whose Case Blocked ITAK President Now Offers to Drop It — If Party Votes Again

October 2026

Our Reporter

Oct 4, 2026 — 3 min read

Sumanthiran Plans Campaign Against Sri Lanka's Proposed Counterterrorism Law

October 2026

Our Reporter

Oct 4, 2026 — 3 min read

‘Beauty of the War’: A 17-Year-Old’s Death Shakes a Kilinochchi Village

KILINOCHCHI, Sri Lanka — Her parents named her Samarazhagi, from the Tamil words samar, meaning war, and azhagi, meaning beauty. She was born in the final years of Sri Lanka's civil war, when Tamil families in the north were living through some of the worst violence of the conflict. On Oct. 1, observed in Sri Lanka as World Children's Day, Samarazhagi died by suicide. She was 17. Residents of her village, Uruthirapuram, and people familiar with her family say she left a letter alleging that sh

October 2026 Monitor Memo

Our Reporter

Oct 5, 2026 — 3 min read

Can Xue Leads Betting Market Ahead of 2026 Nobel Prize in Literature

STOCKHOLM — Can Xue, the Chinese avant-garde novelist whose experimental fiction has made her a perennial contender for the Nobel Prize in Literature, has emerged as the bookmakers’ favorite to win this year’s award, according to odds offered by the British betting company Ladbrokes. Can Xue is listed at 10/1, ahead of the Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami at 14/1. Australian writer Gerald Murnane and the American novelist Thomas Pynchon are among the other writers near the top of the market.

October 2026

Our Reporter

Oct 4, 2026 — 1 min read

Rs. 5,000 for a Rs. 400 Ride: Tamil Travelers Warn of Airport Tuk-Tuk Fares

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka —Travelers from Sri Lanka's Tamil-majority north say tuk-tuk drivers near the country's main international airport are charging thousands of rupees for a few-kilometer ride from a bus stop to the terminal. The complaints center on the 18th Mile Post junction, known in Sinhala as Dahata Kanuwa, near Bandaranaike International Airport in Katunayake. Long-distance buses drop passengers at or near the junction, and travelers must find their own transportation for the rest of the

Monitor Memo October 2026

Our Reporter

Oct 4, 2026 — 2 min read

Jaffna Man Loses Three Limbs After Being Struck by Train While Listening to Music on Headphones

JAFFNA, Sri Lanka — A man was critically injured on Saturday night when he was struck by a train near his home in the Inuvil-Karaikal area of Jaffna, the police said. According to preliminary police information, the man was lying on the railway track and listening to music on headphones at the time. The train severed both of his legs and one arm. He was taken to the emergency treatment unit at Jaffna Teaching Hospital, where he remained in critical condition, according to the police. The Chun

October 2026

Our Reporter

Oct 4, 2026 — 1 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

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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

October 2026

Our Reporter

Oct 3, 2026 — 3 min read

Inside the Terrifying Moments Passengers Fought to Save Flight 1073

Yaniv Hayun had just helped drag the co-pilot out of the cockpit. Then he went back in. The captain was on the floor, bleeding from wounds to his head and hands. The Boeing 737 MAX 8, carrying more than 170 people from Dubai to Tel Aviv, was still losing altitude over the Saudi desert. Mr. Hayun, a plumber, grabbed the control column and pulled back. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel later asked him how he knew to do that. "Yes, I watch 'Air Crash Investigation,'" Mr. Hayun said. Th

October 2026

Jaffna Monitor

Oct 3, 2026 — 6 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

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

By Professor G. L. Peiris D. Phil. (Oxford), Ph. D. (Sri Lanka); Former Minister of Justice, Constitutional Affairs and National Integration; Quondam Visiting Fellow of the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge and London; Former Vice-Chancellor and Emeritus Professor of Law of the University of Colombo. There is widespread interest in the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution of Sri Lanka in this country as well as abroad. This is especially so after the widely disseminated comments by Ms Margaret S

Guest Column OP-ED