Search Results for: sri lanka civil war

Officials in Sri Lanka announced plans this weekend to ban burqas in public and close more than 1,000 Islamic schools. These policies are the latest in a string of decisions targeting the country’s Muslim minority. Citing national security concerns, Sri Lanka’s public security minister Sarath Weerasekera signed papers for cabinet approval of the ban on [...]

It has been almost 12 years since the civil war in Sri Lanka came to an end after the defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Since 2009, there has been a concerted effort to hold perpetrators accountable for the mass killings against Tamil citizens, there has also been a governmental committee set [...]

UN High Commissioner Michelle Bachelet raised concern over increasing human rights violations by state and military officials in Sri Lanka in a UN report published on Wednesday. Bachelet also suggested the imposition of sanctions on military officials in Sri Lanka accused of war crimes and several human rights violations. The report highlights the negative impact [...]

As the armed forces of Armenia and Azerbaijan, in the Nagorno-Karabakh region of the Caucasus, slug it out over a decades-long dispute about a piece of ground, one is reminded that conflict, once again, has become dirty and lawless at many levels. Civilians have become targets, protective symbols of the Geneva Conventions, such as the [...]

On Friday, June 26, 2020, the Supreme Court of the United States decided a Suspension Clause challenge to expedited immigration proceedings.  In the widely anticipated judgment, the Court determined that no habeas could be brought as the original habeas petitioner was not in fact asking for the habeas relief of release. In so many words, [...]

Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa on Thursday pardoned former army sergeant Sunil Ratnayake, who was sentenced to death for killing eight Tamil civilians during the country’s civil war. After a 13-year trial, the Colombo High Court found Ratnayake guilty of eight civilian murders and sentenced him to death in June 2015. The Supreme Court upheld [...]

Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa announced Wednesday that his country will withdraw from co-sponsorship of a 2015 UN resolution which sought to investigate war crimes committed on the island during the country’s civil war. It is believed the move is a response to the US imposing a travel ban on Sri Lanka’s army commander [...]

Mahinda Rajapaksa, appointed Prime Minister of Sri Lanka last month, has been barred from taking office by a Colombo court’s order on Monday. The Appeals Court asked that he reappear by December 12 with justification for his taking office since Parliament voted against him twice and announced that no cabinet could function under him if [...]

Sri Lanka Defense Chief of Ravindra Wijeguneratne has appeared in Colombo Magistrate Court after his arrest on Wednesday for aiding in the kidnapping of 11 teenagers during the final stages of Sri Lanka’s 26-year civil war in early 2009. When the targeted group, the Tamil Tigers, could not pay the ransom, he is alleged to [...]

Human Rights Watch (HRW) criticized the government of Sri Lanka on Monday for not repealing its "Draconian" counterterrorism law. HRW accused the government of using the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) to arbitrarily detain...