Sri Lanka

Goto go gama

Seven months on from the Sri Lankan popular uprising, Janaka Biyanwila looks at how government spin, backed up with state violence, is attempting to keep a lid on popular discontent.

The mass movement in Sri Lanka mobilised more than a million people in revolt against the corrupt government of former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa. Susan Price reports.

Sri Lanka

After nearly two months in self-imposed exile, former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa returned to Sri Lanka on September 3, reports Janaka Biyanwila.

Sri Lanka protest August 2022

The Sri Lankan government has begun escalating its repression against the popular movement that removed former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa from office, reports Janaka Biyanwila.

Lahiru Weerasekera, a student leader and key actor in the people’s movement, discusses the new forms of struggle in the mass protests in Sri Lanka.

July 9 Sri Lanka

The people’s movement in Sri Lanka that converged in the last three months achieved its main objective on July 9 with President Nandasena Gotabhaya Rajapakse's offer to resign, reports Janaka Biyanwila.

Despite ongoing protests, shortages, 40% inflation and a historic debt default, Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa says he will finish his term. His statement comes amid a wave of mass arrests of peaceful protestors, reports Janaka Biyanwila.

Protest in Sri Lanka May 30

In a government that has lost its popular mandate, Ranil Wickramasinghe, former prime minister from the opposition United National Party, has offered his services to rescue Sri Lanka's regime, reports Janaka Biyanwila.

The institutional integration of sports with the military has reproduced authoritarian sports cultures, writes Janaka Biyanwila. Popular protests demanding regime change are also about demilitarising the state.

Protest posters in Sri Lanka

Since the beginning of March, protests have erupted across Sri Lanka demanding the resignation of President Nandasena Gotabaya Rajapaksa, writes Janaka Biyanwila. These protests emerged in the context of rising costs of living, exacerbated by a foreign debt crisis.

Anti-government protests in Sri Lanka on April 13

A wave of protests has spread throughout Sri Lanka in recent weeks, sparked by an economic crisis. Chris Slee reports.

Sri Lankan health workers protest

A district court in Sri Lanka's capital Colombo ordered the government nurses union to suspend strike action on February 9 after more than three months of strikes, reports Chris Slee

Despite ongoing repression, Tamils continue to fight for their rights, including over the seizure of Tamil land for military bases, reports Chris Slee.

The Tamil Refugee Council (TRC) has condemned the Australian government for supplying five drones to the Sri Lankan police, reports Chris Slee.

Sri Lankan soldiers and police have demolished a monument at Jaffna University dedicated to marking the massacre of Tamils at Mullivaikkal in 2009, reports Chris Slee.

Chris Slee reviews a new documentary showing how British mercenary company Keenie Meenie Services trained a notorious Sri Lankan government paramilitary force, responsible for the torture and murder of Tamil civilians.

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