Sri Lankan rights groups warned Monday that proposed jail terms for spreading misinformation on social media amounted to a wholesale effort to stifle criticism of the island nation’s beleaguered government. An “online safety bill” that mandates five-year prison sentences for any social media post government regulators consider to be “false” or causing offence is set Read more
Posts Tagged ‘Sri Lanka’
Sri Lankan priest seeks Supreme Court protection
Thursday, August 4th, 2022
A Sri Lankan priest has asked for Supreme Court protection. Fr Amila Jeewantha Peirism is asking for the Court’s protection to safeguard his fundamental rights and prevent his arrest. He has been a key figure during Sri Lanka’s anti-government protests. The priest says as a responsible citizen he actively participated in the peaceful anti-government struggle, Read more
Sri Lanka curfew follows Catholic attack on Muslims
Monday, May 13th, 2019
Sri Lankan police imposed a curfew from Sunday to dawn on Monday in a Catholic-majority town 80 kilometres north of Colombo after mobs attacked a mosque and Muslim-owned businesses there. The situation blew up when a resident apparently misunderstood a Muslim man’s Facebook post as posing a threat to Christians. The Muslim man has been Read more
The state must find terror attack perpetrators – or the people will
Monday, May 6th, 2019
The state must find Sri Lanka’s Easter Sunday terror attack perpetrators and put them on trial. If they don’t, they risk the community taking justice into its own hands, warns Cardinal Malcom Ranjith of Colombo. “I want to state that we may not be able to keep people under control in the absence of a Read more
Mass cancelled in Sri Lanka
Monday, April 29th, 2019
Mass in Sri Lanka is cancelled indefinitely and churches closed. The closures follow a series of church and hotel bombings at Easter which killed over 250 people. The Archbishop of Colombo, Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, said church officials had seen a leaked security document describing Catholic churches and other denominations as a major target for attackers. Read more
Speak out: terrorists must not dictate interfaith relationships
Monday, April 29th, 2019
The vicar general of the Auckland diocese, Monsignor Bernard Kiely, told a gathering in Auckland to speak out when terrorist attacks occur. He was giving the homily at a service to remember the victims of the Easter Sunday bombings in Sri Lanka. “Speak out and be very clear that the extremists and the terrorists do Read more
Pope Francis to meet civil war victims in Sri Lanka
Friday, August 29th, 2014Pope Francis will visit Sri Lanka’s war torn north next January, amid accusations of ill treatment of people there by the nation’s Sinhalese majority. Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, the archbishop of Colombo, said Pope Francis will visit the Shrine of Our Lady of Madhu, 260 kms north of the capital. This is in the heart of Read more
Fears for human rights campaigners in Sri Lanka
Tuesday, March 18th, 2014A prominent human rights campaigner in Sri Lanka has been detained by police in the former war zone in the north of the country. Ruki Fernando was detained with Father Praveen, a Catholic priest, as they were looking into the detention of a woman who was campaigning to discover the whereabouts of her missing son Read more
Church warns foreign powers may intervene in Sri Lanka
Friday, December 13th, 2013
The Catholic Church on Wednesday warned Sri Lanka’s government of foreign intervention unless it worked towards reconciliation and addressed allegations of war crimes during the war against Tamil separatists. Malcolm Ranjith, the archbishop of Colombo, said he was urging President Mahinda Rajapakse and the main ethnic Tamil party to hammer out a political settlement or Read more
Sri Lanka: War over, yet torture continues
Friday, November 22nd, 2013
Jesuthasan Rojananth, a 23-year-old Catholic Tamil from Mannar, heard that the security situation in Sri Lanka had improved for ethnic Tamils. So when he had problems renewing his student visa in Malaysia earlier this year, he decided to return to his home country. He’d been away from Sri Lanka since February of 2010, when he Read more