Sri Lanka’s slide into authoritarianism

Last Tuesday, on 2 June, Sri Lanka entered a period of unconstitutional executive rule. Following its dissolution for elections on 2 March, the country’s Parliament has now been suspended for more than the three-month period specified by the Constitution. Although...

Halt the deployment

Early next week, 243 Sri Lankan troops will be deployed to a UN peacekeeping mission in Mali. We want to stop that from happening, and would like to ask for your help in ensuring that it doesn’t. Why? Because the UN itself recently pledged to scale back...

One of Sri Lanka’s most wanted, in one of Sri Lanka’s top jobs

Yesterday, President Sirisena appointed Major General Shavendra Silva to the position of Army Commander, one of the seniormost roles in the Sri Lankan security forces. Silva is an alleged war criminal, the case against whom runs into the hundreds of pages. In October...

The long arm of the Sri Lankan Government

The Government of Sri Lanka are masters at the art of intimidating their critics into silence. However, like most bullies, they tend to pick on those who find it difficult to fight back – either because they are currently living in Sri Lanka or because they have Sri...

Maj Gen Shavendra Silva barred from UN Body

Maj Gen Shavendra Silva who was appointed to the Special Advisory Group on Peacekeeping Operations in January 2012 was barred in taking part in its meeting on 22 February 2012 – because of the credible allegations that he committed war crimes. He was chosen by Asian...