Tag Archives: sri lanka

Sending thoughts of sympathy and support to all those affected by the Sri Lankan horrors

By Paul Walter | Tue 23rd April 2019 - 9:40 am

The photo above shows the view from the Sri Lankan Independence Memorial Hall in Colombo. The flag flying is the Buddhist flag. I took the photo last November. The Memorial Hall is very much a centre of national events in Sri Lanka. Annual Independence celebrations are held there. It is a very peaceful place. When I visited, children played in the hall while families sat admiring the sunset.

That peacefulness is very much a keynote of Sri Lanka. The majority Buddhist religion is pervasive in its emphasis on meditation and spiritual development. The people of Sri Lanka are generally very peaceful, easy-going and welcoming to strangers. While I was there, there was a full blown constitutional crisis ongoing, with the President and Prime Minister involved in a stand-off which was eventually settled (in the Prime Minister’s favour) by the Supreme Court. If you weren’t reading the news, you wouldn’t have known that anything was awry – life went on peacefully and cheerfully as usual across the country.

Posted in Op-eds | 1 Comment

In an historic decision, the Sri Lankan Supreme Court rules that the President’s dissolution of parliament was illegal

By Paul Walter | Thu 13th December 2018 - 12:30 pm

Embed from Getty Images
This follows on from my post on November 29th.

The Sri Lankan Supreme Court has just ruled unanimously that President Sirisena acted illegally when he dissolved Parliament and called early elections.

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Sri Lanka: A presidential attempt to subvert parliamentary democracy

By Paul Walter | Thu 29th November 2018 - 10:31 am

My photo of the entrance to the Sri Lankan President’s House in Colombo last week
I’m just back from a glorious holiday in Sri Lanka. Going around this beautiful island, one could have been forgiven for not realising that there was a national constitutional crisis going on. Every where was peaceful and there was no sign of even the odd protest placard, even in the capital of Colombo. The Sri Lankan people are extremely friendly and peaceful. I did notice some particularly passionate TV debates, as I flicked around the channels to find the cricket, and the papers were full of the latest machinations in Parliament.

I hesitate to summarise the details of the Sri Lankan constitutional crisis. Wikipedia provides an excellent narrative.

In the words of the BBC:

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Daily View 2×2: 22 November 2009

By Mark Pack | Sun 22nd November 2009 - 7:00 am

It’s Sunday. It’s 7am and we’ve got some coffee art to wake you up this morning. But first, the blogs and then the news.

2 Must-Read Blog Posts

What are other Liberal Democrat bloggers saying? Here’s are two posts that have caught the eye from the Liberal Democrat Blogs aggregator:

Mathematical error leads to blunder by Local Government Boundary Commission for Wales reports Ali Goldsworthy on Freedom Central
Christians engage with politics – quite rightly as Lynne Featherstone reports on a visit to a local church group

Spotted any other great posts in the last day from blogs that aren’t on the aggregator? Do post up a comment sharing them with us all.

2 Big Stories

Sri Lanka vows to free 130,000 Tamil refugees

Posted in Daily View | Also tagged ali goldsworthy, equalities and lynne featherstone | 3 Comments

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Tag Archives: sri lanka

Sending thoughts of sympathy and support to all those affected by the Sri Lankan horrors

In an historic decision, the Sri Lankan Supreme Court rules that the President’s dissolution of parliament was illegal

Sri Lanka: A presidential attempt to subvert parliamentary democracy