October 2026

By Asela Kuruluwansa COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — President Anura Kumara Dissanayake said on Thursday that his government would review prison regulations on the treatment of Buddhist monks. The decision follows objections from senior clergy after prison officials removed the robes of Galagoda Aththe Gnanasara Thero, a prominent and divisive monk serving a prison sentence. Mr. Dissanayake announced the review after meeting with representatives of the country's four main monastic orders at the President

MELBOURNE, Australia — A Sri Lankan-born Buddhist monk who sexually abused six girls at a Melbourne temple over eight years was sentenced on Thursday to 13 years and two months in prison, after a judge condemned his crimes as a profound betrayal of the trust placed in him by families who regarded him as a spiritual leader. Naotunne Vijitha, 71, the former chief monk of the Dhamma Sarana temple in Melbourne’s southeastern suburbs, was convicted last year of nine counts of sexual penetration of a

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — President Anura Kumara Dissanayake had a heated exchange with his justice minister on Thursday morning over the removal of Gnanasara Thero’s robes in prison, according to sources in the President’s Office, hours before he was scheduled to meet senior representatives of the country’s principal Buddhist monastic orders over the same controversy. The sources told Jaffna Monitor that Justice Minister Harshana Nanayakkara was responsible for the decision that led to Galagoda Ath

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Sivarasa Anojan, the Sri Lankan migrant worker facing execution in Saudi Arabia, told his family that he had been attacked with a sharp weapon in prison, according to a civil society activist working closely with his relatives. Sri Lanka's government, relying on information from Saudi prison authorities, told Parliament on Wednesday that his injuries had been caused by another inmate's fingernails. Foreign Minister Vijitha Herath gave the government's accountin reply to urg

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Shiranthi Rajapaksa, the wife of former President Mahinda Rajapaksa, was ordered held in remand custody until Oct. 13 on Wednesday after anti-corruption investigators accused her of involvement in the alleged misuse of 10 million rupees in state-bank funds intended to buy a CT scanner for Sri Lanka’s main children’s hospital. The case marks an extraordinary turn for a family that dominated Sri Lankan politics for nearly two decades: Mrs. Rajapaksa is the first former first

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — A Sri Lankan diplomat helped save a domestic worker from execution in Saudi Arabia in the mid-2000s by going around formal diplomatic channels and sending a personal appeal to the Saudi royal court, according to a human rights activist who said the diplomat described the episode to him. The activist, Muheed Jeeran, who has worked on cases involving Sri Lankan migrant workers in the Persian Gulf, said the diplomat, Nilanthini Arulpiragasam, persuaded a Sri Lankan employee of