October 2026

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

By Asela Kuruluwansha COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — More than a third of hospital patients tested for respiratory illness in Sri Lanka recently were found to have influenza, health officials said, as they urged pregnant women, young children and older people with chronic illnesses to take extra care. Samples from patients admitted to hospitals with fever, cough, cold and body aches were tested at the Medical Research Institute in Colombo, and about 35 percent were positive for the flu, said Dr. Palitha

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

By Asela Kuruluwansa KANDY, Sri Lanka — A senior Sri Lankan cabinet minister said on Wednesday that the government needed new antiterrorism powers to prevent a revival of ethnic nationalism. His comments were an unusually direct explanation of the rationale behind legislation intended to replace the country’s Prevention of Terrorism Act. “Ethnic nationalism is still lurking in our country. It has not disappeared,” said the minister, K.D. Lal Kantha, who holds the agriculture, livestock, lands

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