Preserving Sri Lankan Heritage, or Entrenching Buddhist Supremacy?

On 2 June 2020, whilst the Sri Lankan parliament had been dissolved since March pending delayed elections, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa announced the formation of two new Presidential Taskforces. One of these Taskforces, ‘for Archaeological Heritage Management in the...

We need to talk about impunity

Last month, Sri Lanka witnessed some of the worst violence in recent memory, as mobs of Sinhalese Buddhist hardliners rampaged through the streets of Ampara and Kandy attacking Muslim homes, businesses and places of worship. Over the course of several days, hundreds...

Ominous rise in attacks on Sri Lanka’s Christians

Throughout Sri Lanka’s short history, Governments of all persuasions have fermented religious and ethnic nationalism to gain popular support. This has left Sri Lanka with a legacy of Buddhist extremism which frequently manifests in the form of attacks on members...

Mob storms meeting of relatives of the disappeared – pt 3

This is the last part a three part series on the incidents surrounding the storming of a meeting in Colombo by a mob of Government supporters last Tuesday. In part one we provided a narrative of events with some photos and footage from the scene. In part two we...