Aruliniyan Mahalingam

Aruliniyan Mahalingam

Aruliniyan Mahalingam is a Sri Lankan journalist and author from Jaffna, known for incisive reporting on conflict, culture, and geopolitics across South and Southeast Asia.

Sri Lanka
Inside the Appeal That Ended in a Death Sentence for Sivarasa Anojan

Inside the Appeal That Ended in a Death Sentence for Sivarasa Anojan

KALMUNAI, Sri Lanka — Sivarasa Anojan was serving a five-year prison sentence in Saudi Arabia over a Facebook comment about the Prophet Muhammad. His family was told that an appeal could result in a reduced sentence, and they agreed to pursue one. But when the appeal was decided on Thursday, the court instead sentenced him to death, according to the lawyer who attended the hearing. Documents reviewed by Jaffna Monitor show that Sri Lanka’s Foreign Ministry helped facilitate the appeal even afte
JM Exclusive September 2026
Aruliniyan Mahalingam

Aruliniyan Mahalingam
The Curious Case of Gnanasara Thero’s Pardon

The Curious Case of Gnanasara Thero’s Pardon

By Aruliniyan Mahalingam The Supreme Court declared on 10 September that the presidential pardon granted to Galagoda Aththe Gnanasara Thero was null and void. The judgment runs to 58 pages, and its findings reach well beyond the monk who benefited from the pardon. Justice Janak De Silva wrote it. Justices Sobhitha Rajakaruna and Sampath B. Abayakoon agreed. The two petitions were filed in 2019 by the Centre for Policy Alternatives and its executive director, Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu, and sepa
JM Exclusive September 2026
Aruliniyan Mahalingam

Aruliniyan Mahalingam
Madame-Sir

Madame-Sir

Iranganie Manel Abeysekera, the first woman to enter Sri Lanka's career diplomatic service, died in Colombo on September 10, 2026. She was 93. She was buried at Borella Kanatte the following day. She joined what was then the Ceylon Overseas Service in 1958, the only woman among eight candidates selected that year. By the time she retired, she had served as Chief of Protocol, as Ambassador to Thailand and to Germany, and had written the Foreign Ministry's first Manual of Protocol Procedure. An
Obituary September 2026
Aruliniyan Mahalingam

Aruliniyan Mahalingam
Jaffna-Born Kamzy Gunaratnam Named Norway’s Transport Minister

Jaffna-Born Kamzy Gunaratnam Named Norway’s Transport Minister

OSLO — Kamzy Gunaratnam, who arrived in Norway as a 3-year-old refugee from Sri Lanka's civil war, was appointed the country's transport minister on Friday, taking charge of a ministry that oversees Norway's roads, railways, aviation and sea transport. Ms. Gunaratnam, 38, a Labour Party member of Parliament from Oslo, was appointed in a cabinet meeting on Sept. 11 and took office at noon the same day. She succeeds Jon-Ivar Nygård, who had led the ministry since October 2021. The change was par
September 2026 Monitor Memo
Aruliniyan Mahalingam

Aruliniyan Mahalingam
The Long Warning: Inside the Intelligence Trail That Preceded Easter Bombings
Zahran Hashim and other men pledge allegiance to Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi before the 2019 Easter Sunday attacks.

The Long Warning: Inside the Intelligence Trail That Preceded Easter Bombings

By Aruliniyan Mahalingam JAFFNA — On the evening of April 20, 2019, a man at his home in Puthukudiyiruppu took a WhatsApp call from an Indian police officer. The call came sometime between 5:15 and 5:45 p.m. The officer asked him an odd question: where were Sri Lanka's major churches? The man named the ones that came to mind. The Madhu shrine. St. Anthony's at Kochchikade in Colombo. The Tewatta church at Ragama. Then the officer told him that Zahran Hashim's group was preparing to strike Cat
JM Exclusive September 2026
Aruliniyan Mahalingam

Aruliniyan Mahalingam
Families of Sri Lanka’s Disappeared March in Jaffna, Still Asking: Where Are They?

Families of Sri Lanka’s Disappeared March in Jaffna, Still Asking: Where Are They?

JAFFNA, Sri Lanka — They came carrying photographs of sons, husbands and other relatives who disappeared years ago, some dressed in black, some holding burning torches, many still asking the question that has defined years of protests across Sri Lanka’s north and east: Where are they? Relatives of the forcibly disappeared marched through Jaffna on Sunday as part of a gathering that brought United Nations officials, international diplomats and human rights advocates together with families who sa
JM Exclusive August 2026
Aruliniyan Mahalingam

Aruliniyan Mahalingam
As ITAK Rivals Fight for Influence, Former LTTE Fighters Become the New Battleground

As ITAK Rivals Fight for Influence, Former LTTE Fighters Become the New Battleground

KILINOCHCHI, Sri Lanka — For more than 17 years since Sri Lanka’s civil war ended, many former Tamil Tiger fighters have lived on the margins, poor and jobless and carrying the injuries of the battlefield. Now, as a struggle for influence intensifies inside the country’s main Tamil political party, they are suddenly being courted. M.A. Sumanthiran and S. Sritharan, longtime rivals inside the Ilankai Tamil Arasu Kadchi, or ITAK, are holding separate meetings in Kilinochchi with former members of
JM Exclusive August 2026
Aruliniyan Mahalingam

Aruliniyan Mahalingam
Meta Is Making Its Apps Safer for American Teens. What About Sri Lanka?

Meta Is Making Its Apps Safer for American Teens. What About Sri Lanka?

By Aruliniyan Mahalingam JAFFNA — Opening a phone for a quick look at Instagram and surfacing forty minutes later is such a common failure of self-discipline that most people have stopped calling it one. American authorities spent years arguing it was never a failure of discipline at all. In a case brought by 47 states, the District of Columbia and several U.S. territories, they accused Meta of building features whose purpose was to keep young users watching, scrolling and coming back. On Wedn
Cover Story August 2026
Aruliniyan Mahalingam

Aruliniyan Mahalingam