Lanka Business Online
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Sri Lanka should implement several key measures contained in a report by a commission which studied lessons to be learnt from a recent civil war, some of which can be done without delay, a civil organization of professionals has said.
Sri Lanka's Organization of Professional Association, a civil society organization said a report by Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) had come up with many good recommendations to promote good governance and ethnic reconciliation.
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IRIN
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Sri Lankan parliamentarians in favour of acting on the recommendations in a report into the final stages of the country’s civil war by the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) are slowly gaining ground over those who are not, says a presidential peace process adviser.
The government’s initial reaction to the LLRC recommendations was positive, presidential adviser and parliamentarian Rajiva Wijesinha told IRIN, but others saw the report, released just over six months ago, as a call for regime change and were “highly critical”.
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Human Rights Watch
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The Sri Lankan government should immediately end harassment of media outlets and journalists in violation of the right to freedom of expression, Human Rights Watch said Tuesday (03). In the three years since the end of the armed conflict with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s government has expanded its efforts to silence critical views.
On June 29, 2012, the Criminal Investigation Department, acting on a court order, raided the offices of the Sri Lanka Mirror, a news website, and Sri Lanka X News, a website of the opposition United National Party. The authorities confiscated computers and documents, and arrested nine people on the grounds that the websites were “propagating false and unethical news on Sri Lanka.” They were charged under article 120 of the Penal Code, which imposes up to two years in prison for those who “excite or attempt to excite feelings of disaffection to the president or to the government.” The day after their arrest the nine were released on bail.
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Xinhua | China Radio International
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The United States will remain engaged with Sri Lanka despite some differences of opinion on the political front, the U.S. ambassador to Sri Lanka said on Wednesday.
In a message released in Colombo to mark America's Independence Day, the U.S. envoy in Colombo Patricia Butenis noted that the Sri Lankan government has made progress on the resettlement issue and post war development.
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Xinhua-ANI | Newstrack India
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The main minority Tamil political party in Sri Lanka said on Tuesday that moves aimed at reaching a political solution to the ethnic issue in the country remained deadlocked.
Tamil National Alliance (TNA) legislator M.A. Sumanthiran told Xinhua that his party leader R. Sampanthan and the leader of the main opposition United National Party (UNP) Ranil Wickremesinghe had met over the weekend in an attempt to look for a way forward.
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