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COLOMBO, Sri Lanka: A court in Colombo on Friday ordered 55 people, including the Buddhist monk Ulapane Sumangala Thera, to leave the premises of the Presidential Secretariat, where monks who marched from Kandy this week have been staging a sit-in to demand the release of the hard-line nationalist monk Galagoda Aththe Gnanasara Thera. The Colombo Fort Magistrate’s Court issued the order a day after the marchers reached the secretariat, which houses the president’s office, at the end of a six-da

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka: Buddhist monks who ended a six-day march from Kandy with a sit-in outside the Presidential Secretariat in Colombo said on Thursday night that they would not leave until the government agreed to free Galagoda Aththe Gnanasara Thera, the hard-line nationalist monk who was returned to prison this month after the Supreme Court struck down his presidential pardon. The marchers reached the secretariat on Thursday evening and sat down on the road outside. The president’s secretary,

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Anojan Sivarasa, the Sri Lankan migrant worker whose death sentence was overturned this week by Saudi Arabia’s Supreme Court, is due to appear before a lower court on Oct. 17 in proceedings that will determine whether he is punished again, how severely, and when he might return home. The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that the death sentence and an earlier five-year prison term were set aside, according to Faiszer Musthapha, a Sri Lankan lawmaker and President’s Counsel involv

JAFFNA, Sri Lanka — A Sri Lankan Tamil widow who has lived as a refugee in Indonesia since 2014 has publicly appealed for help returning home, saying that the organization that paid for her housing and food is ending its support and that she and her daughter may soon have nothing to eat. Geethabanu Pranavan, who is from Point Pedro on the northern tip of the Jaffna Peninsula, said in a Facebook post that she and her daughter, Anchana, had been registered with the United Nations refugee agency,

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka, Oct. 15 – Saudi Arabia’s Supreme Court has overturned the death sentence of a Sri Lankan migrant worker convicted of insulting the Prophet Muhammad in a Facebook comment and has ordered his case to be heard again, according to a Sri Lankan lawmaker who worked on the appeal. The ruling, issued on Wednesday, also set aside the five-year prison sentence that a trial court had originally imposed on the worker, Anojan Sivarasa, 27, a Tamil from Sri Lanka’s Eastern Province. It ca

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — A Hindu priest who spent about 22 years in prison in connection with the 1999 assassination attempt on President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga has asked a Tamil nationalist Facebook page to stop publicising his case, saying the renewed attention has threatened the life he has rebuilt since his release. In an open letter posted on Facebook on Tuesday, the priest, Brahmasri Chandra Iyer Ragupathi Sharma, asked the page, Inam Ondrin Kural, or Voice of a Race, to stop usin

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka: A member of Parliament from Batticaloa District has asked the Court of Appeal to reopen a case over the occupation of traditional cattle grazing land in the Eastern Province, saying state authorities did not carry out assurances given to the court that encroachers would be removed. Shanakiyan Rasamanickam filed an application seeking to revive proceedings the court closed several years ago. According to the application, people occupying the Mayilathamadu and Mathavanai grazi

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — A Tamil party allied with Sri Lanka’s main opposition has asked the opposition leader, Sajith Premadasa, to act after Lakshman Kiriella, a senior figure in Mr. Premadasa’s party, described the government’s handling of a jailed Buddhist monk’s case as an effort to appease Tamil-speaking citizens. Mano Ganesan, the leader of the Tamil Progressive Alliance, made the request in a letter to Mr. Premadasa, whose Samagi Jana Balawegaya, or S.J.B., leads the coalition the T.P.A. be