Sri Lanka's civic space 'repressed'

THE CIVICUS Monitor has recently announced in a new report that the main civic space violations across the Asia-Pacific include the detention of protesters and activists.

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The report, People Power Under Attack 2025, assesses civic space conditions in 198 countries and territories, looking at citizens' ability to exercise their freedoms of assembly, association and expression.

In Sri Lanka, where civic space is rated as 'repressed', the authorities have continued to use counter-terror laws and target activists, journalists and protesters.

In March 2025, Mohamed Rusdi, a 22-yearold Muslim youth, was detained under the country's draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA), for his activism on Palestine. He was held under a detention order, signed off by the Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, before being released on bail.

Activists from the North and East were targeted. An ethnic Tamil youth activist was arrested and remanded in May 2025 following a false complaint by a Sinhala Buddhist monk involved in the construction of a controversial temple in Periyakulam, Trincomalee District. In the same month, the Counter Terrorism Investigation Division (CTID) summoned Vasuki Vallipuram, a well-known women's rights activist and Coordinator of the Women Life and Rights Association - Kilinochchi, for interrogation. In September 2025, the Counter Terrorism and Investigation Division (CTID) summoned Tamil activist K. Sinthujan of Trincomalee - linked to the Tamil National People's Front (TNPF)- for questioning for the second time in two months.

The OHCHR also reported that the surveillance apparatus, especially in the north and east, has remained largely intact. OHCHR observed continued patterns of surveillance, intimidation and harassment of families of the disappeared, community leaders, civil society actors, especially those working on accountability for enforced disappearances and other conflict-related crimes, land seizures, environmental issues, and those working with former combatants in Sri Lanka's north and east.