Media Coverage

Human Rights Watch (HRW) says its report issued Monday documents abuses by the Sri Lankan government that undercut its plans for a truth and reconciliation commission. The report, titled “If We Raise Our Voice They Arrest Us: Sri Lanka’s Proposed Truth and Reconciliation Commission,” is based on...

Sri Lanka’s president said Wednesday he will strengthen provincial governments to meet long-standing demands for self-rule from the ethnic Tamil minority, an issue that led to a bloody quarter-century civil war in the island nation. The provincial councils were introduced in Sri Lanka in 1987 after...

Sri Lanka’s former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa was accused in a report released Thursday of tampering with police records in order to hamper investigations into mass graves discovered in an area where he was a military officer at the height of a bloody Marxist insurrection in 1989. The report by...

Sri Lanka's parliament on Friday passed a constitutional amendment aimed at trimming presidential powers, beefing up anti-corruption safeguards​, and helping to find a way out of the country's worst financial crisis since independence—although opposition parties and civil society representatives...

Ahead of the UN Human Rights Chief’s latest report on Sri Lanka, and a likely resolution at the coming session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva, the Sri Lankan government reiterated that it would not accept any external mechanism on war-time accountability. Though rejecting the possibility of...

Sri Lankan lawmakers on Wednesday elected the unpopular prime minister as their new president, a choice that risked reigniting turmoil in the South Asian nation reeling from economic collapse and months of round-the-clock protests. The crisis has already forced out one leader, and a few hundred...

Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has been sworn in as acting president after the speaker of the parliament accepted a resignation letter sent by embattled President Gotabaya Rajapaksa after he fled the country. Wickremesinghe on Friday asked legislators to work towards a consensus to...

Sri Lanka‘s parliament will hold a vote on July 20 to elect a new president, its speaker has said, to replace President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who has promised to resign. The statement on Monday comes after protesters stormed the residences of the current president and prime minister, prompting both...

The Sri Lankan cabinet has approved constitutional reforms that will limit the powers of the president in a move aimed at appeasing the protesters calling for President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to quit over the country’s worst economic crisis in decades. The decision to amend the constitution to clip the...

Sri Lanka’s prime minister said Sunday that protesting youth groups will be invited to be part of governance under political reforms he is proposing to solve the country’s political crisis triggered by an economic collapse. Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said that under proposed constitutional...