Sri Lanka Should Not Import the Middle East’s Hatreds

Sri Lanka Should Not Import the Middle East’s Hatreds

By: Soraya M Deen Sri Lanka is witnessing the rise of a dangerous ideology disguised as virtue: antizionism that increasingly spills into outright antisemitism. As a Muslim, I find it exhausting and deeply alarming. I have watched its ugly tentacles spread into my homeland thousands of miles away from the Middle East. First, there was hostility toward Israeli tourists visiting Sri Lanka. Then came campaigns against a Chabad house, as if Jewish worship itself was somehow offensive. Now Sri Lan
May 2026 Opinion
Soraya M. Deen

Soraya M. Deen
Young Mother Dies After Motorcycle Crash With Stunt Rider in Kilinochchi

Young Mother Dies After Motorcycle Crash With Stunt Rider in Kilinochchi

KILINOCHCHI, Sri Lanka — A 32-year-old mother was killed Sunday when a motorcycle ridden by a youth, allegedly performing dangerous stunts on a public road, struck her motorcycle head-on in Kilinochchi district, in Sri Lanka's Northern Province, police said. The victim, identified as Kagitha Shanmugam, was riding from Uruthirapuram toward Karadipokku to pick up her 7-year-old daughter from school when the crash occurred on the road connecting the two towns. Witnesses described the impact as ho
May 2026 Monitor Memo
Our Reporter

Our Reporter
THE SACRED AND THE PROFANE

THE SACRED AND THE PROFANE

ANURADHAPURA, Sri Lanka — She was eleven years old, by her own account, when her mother first brought her to the private residential quarters inside one of the holiest Buddhist precincts in the world. She was fourteen when she told police what happened there. The man she named is Pallegama Hemarathana Thero, 71, the Atamasthanadhipathi — Chief Prelate and Custodian of the Eight Sacred Sites of Anuradhapura, and the senior-most administrative authority over the Sri Maha Bodhi: the sacred fig tr
JM Exclusive May 2026
Aruliniyan Mahalingam

Aruliniyan Mahalingam
Tamils Caught Between the JVP and Their Traditional Tamil Party Leadership

Tamils Caught Between the JVP and Their Traditional Tamil Party Leadership

By M.R. Narayan Swamy “If we have to vote, who should get our vote?” a middle-aged Tamil man asked a friend at a social event in Jaffna. The innocuous query betrayed a sense of confusion that prevails in the minds of many Tamils in Sri Lanka, nearly two years after they jolted the traditional Tamil parties in parliamentary elections almost everywhere. Tamils admit they have always seen the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), the country’s dominant ruling party, as a Sinhala-Buddhist entity. But
Guest Column May 2026
M.R. Narayan Swamy

M.R. Narayan Swamy
The Strait of Hormuz: New Arrangements Under International Law

The Strait of Hormuz: New Arrangements Under International Law

By: Kazem Gharibabadi, Deputy Foreign Minister for Legal and International Affairs of Iran Prelude For a long period, maritime navigation through the Strait of Hormuz did not proceed on the basis of exercising an asserted right, but rather within the framework of an interaction founded upon comity and mutual good faith. Over years, the Islamic Republic of Iran, as the coastal State, facilitated the passage of vessels through a continuous and peaceful practice. However, this practice was never
Guest Column May 2026
Kazem Gharibabadi

Kazem Gharibabadi
Death Row Inmate in Vithiya Case Found Hanging in Jaffna Prison
A newspaper clipping reporting the 2017 Jaffna High Court verdict sentencing seven men to death in the rape and murder case of Pungudutivu schoolgirl Sivaloganathan Vithiya.

Death Row Inmate in Vithiya Case Found Hanging in Jaffna Prison

JAFFNA, Sri Lanka — A prisoner sentenced to death in the high-profile 2015 murder of Pungudutivu schoolgirl Sivaloganathan Vithiya died by suicide inside the Jaffna Prison, prison authorities said Monday. The Department of Prisons said the inmate, Poobalasingham Jeyakumar, 46, was found hanging inside the prison on Monday morning. Authorities said an investigation into the death was underway. Jeyakumar was among seven men sentenced to death by the Jaffna High Court in 2017 over the rape and mu
May 2026 Monitor Memo
Our Reporter

Our Reporter
Sri Lanka’s War Ended. Its Reckoning Never Began.

Sri Lanka’s War Ended. Its Reckoning Never Began.

By Sidhartha Thamby Every society that has passed through large-scale political violence carries the obligation to reckon with it honestly. That Sri Lanka shares this condition with dozens of other countries is not a reason for complacency — it is a reminder that resolution is possible because others have achieved it, and that failure is not inevitable. More than seventeen years after the Sri Lankan military crushed the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in a brutal final campaign, the country h
Guest Column May 2026
Sidhartha Thamby

Sidhartha Thamby
“AKD Walked the Same Road”: Jaffna Protesters Reject Security Justification for Land Occupation

“AKD Walked the Same Road”: Jaffna Protesters Reject Security Justification for Land Occupation

MAYILIDDY, Sri Lanka — The chairman of a local government body in Sri Lanka's Northern Province said Sunday that there was "absolutely no justification" for the military to continue occupying civilian lands in the region, speaking at a protest demanding the return of privately owned property still under military control more than a decade and a half after the end of the country's civil war. The demonstration, organized by the Valikamam North Resettlement Development Committee, drew residents fr
May 2026 Monitor Memo
Our Reporter

Our Reporter