When Sri Lanka’s National People’s Power (NPP) Government came to office in late 2024, it presented itself as a decisive break with the political culture that had dominated the country for decades. Its programme promised constitutional reform, stronger democratic institutions, an independent public prosecutor, repeal of the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA), action on political prisoners and accountability for the Easter Sunday attacks and other emblematic cases.
It also promised to confront corruption, address ethnic discrimination and advance reconciliation. President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s rejection of ethno-religious politics and emphasis on national unity represented, in the UN’s assessment, a departure from some previous political approaches.
But the latest assessment by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) presents a far more troubling picture of what has happened since.
The Government’s reform programme, the report says, came with commitments to “transformative reforms”, including constitutional change, repeal of the PTA, accountability and reconciliation. Yet the central finding is that “the momentum for change has not yet translated into legal and institutional reforms”.
That gap between promise and implementation runs through virtually every major issue examined by the UN.
Sri Lanka has faced extraordinary pressures. Cyclone Ditwah struck on 28 November 2025, affecting an estimated 2.2 million people across all 25 districts. By April 2026, 687 people had died and 147 remained missing, while nearly 110,000 homes had been destroyed or partially damaged. The disaster caused approximately USD2 billion in physical damage and created recovery and reconstruction needs estimated at USD3.4 billion.
The country was simultaneously exposed to further economic pressures from the conflict in West Asia. Poverty was estimated at 22.1 per cent in 2025, while food insecurity reached 32 per cent in December before improving to 21 per cent in February 2026.
The Government therefore has a legitimate argument that its reform programme has been operating under severe constraints. But OHCHR makes clear that economic and humanitarian shocks cannot explain the absence of fundamental institutional change.
The contradiction is most visible in counter-terrorism legislation.
The NPP pledged to abolish the PTA, long criticised by human rights organisations for enabling prolonged detention and other abuses. Yet the law remains in use. The Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka notified 46 PTA detention cases in 2025 and another 12 by March 2026.
The proposed replacement has hardly reassured the UN. OHCHR’s preliminary assessment of the Protection of the State from Terrorism Act warned of “overbroad criminalisation”, extensive executive powers, arbitrary detention and risks of torture and enforced disappearance.
Cabinet approved publication of the Bill in August 2026, but the latest draft had still not been made public by the end of that month.
The same pattern emerges in emergency powers. Following Cyclone Ditwah, emergency regulations authorised warrantless arrests and detention, searches and seizures without prior judicial approval, restrictions on movement and assembly, curfews and military involvement in civilian functions.
The Human Rights Commission warned that these measures were incompatible with constitutional and international human rights standards. Although the regulations lapsed on 28 June 2026, the President continued to issue notifications under the Public Security Ordinance allowing the armed forces to maintain public order, including during protests.
For a Government elected partly on a promise to dismantle oppressive practices, the continued reliance on such powers is one of the report’s most consequential warnings.
The human cost is reflected in the figures recorded by the Human Rights Commission. There were 18 deaths in custody in 2025 and three by April 2026. The Commission recorded 602 complaints of torture or ill-treatment during 2025 and 138 by April 2026, together with 1,125 complaints of arbitrary arrest or detention in 2025.
The report notes that there was no police action in 530 of the 1,125 arbitrary-arrest cases recorded in 2025.
The crisis became especially stark in July 2026, when violence at Negombo Prison left at least 32 people dead — 22 detainees and 10 prison officials. OHCHR linked the wider prison crisis to inadequate resources, severe overcrowding and the “overcriminalisation of minor offences such as drug use”.
The UN has also documented what it describes as a continuing pattern of surveillance, intimidation and reprisals against civil society.
Sixteen allegations submitted directly to OHCHR described surveillance and intimidation by military and civilian intelligence agencies, including the Criminal Investigation Department and Terrorism Investigation Division. Activists and organisations in the north and east reportedly faced questioning about their contacts with the UN, Geneva processes, foreign funding, protests and commemorations.
OHCHR says there are “continuing patterns of surveillance, intimidation and reprisals” against civil society actors.
For families of the disappeared and victims of the civil war, the issue is especially sensitive. Protests demanding information about missing relatives and opposing land seizures have reportedly been subjected to court restrictions, arrests, surveillance and intimidation.
Memorial events have enjoyed somewhat greater space, but participants have continued to be photographed and organisers pressured.
The report also records concerns about the treatment of journalists. Deputy Editor of Ceylon Today Sulochana Ramiah Mohan was questioned by the CID after gathering information about injured Iranian sailors at Karapitiya Hospital. According to the report, X informed her that the CID had requested deletion of a post referring to her reporting on the Government’s handling of energy and coal procurement.
The proposed NGO regulatory framework has generated another warning. OHCHR says the amended draft NGO Registration and Supervision Bill would impose mandatory registration and burdensome requirements, while giving authorities extensive inspection, suspension and deregistration powers.
The report warns of “excessive inspection and control” and “disproportionate sanctions”, while noting concerns over the lack of meaningful consultation.
Yet the most consequential test of the NPP’s reform mission remains accountability for Sri Lanka’s violent past.
There has been genuine movement in several cases. Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan, known as Pillayan, was arrested in April 2025 over the 2006 disappearance of Eastern University Vice-Chancellor Sivasubramaniam Raveendranath and was indicted by the Attorney General in August 2026. The Court of Appeal ordered a retrial in the killing of parliamentarian Nadarajah Raviraj.
But these developments have not amounted to the comprehensive accountability process promised by the Government.
OHCHR states that there is still “little evidence of meaningful progress” towards accountability for alleged international crimes and serious human rights violations committed by all parties during the armed conflict.
That assessment goes to the heart of Sri Lanka’s unresolved history.
Thousands of families continue to wait for answers about relatives who disappeared. The Office on Missing Persons has received approximately 11,000 complaints, while the UN continues to question whether the institution possesses sufficient independence, investigative capacity and authority to establish the fate of the missing.
The discovery of mass graves has made the issue impossible to dismiss. At Chemmani-Sithuppaththi, skeletal remains corresponding to more than 477 individuals, including children, had been recovered by late July 2026.
OHCHR has called for international forensic and technical assistance, application of the Minnesota Protocol and “impartial criminal investigations”, including examination of possible command responsibility.
At Kurukkalmadam, a forensic excavation in April 2026 found no human remains or artefacts, although the court ordered further investigations in the surrounding area.
The report is equally critical of the response to conflict-related sexual violence. OHCHR says the issue remains “under-acknowledged and insufficiently addressed”, with survivors facing intimidation, stigma, fear of reprisals and limited confidence in institutions.
The Easter Sunday attacks present a more complicated picture because accountability efforts have clearly accelerated.
Former State Intelligence Service Director Suresh Sallay was arrested in February 2026. A travel ban was imposed in June on former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and two military intelligence officers. On 31 July, a three-member Colombo Special Trial-at-Bar found former IGP Pujith Jayasundara and former Defence Secretary Hemasiri Fernando guilty of several charges and sentenced both to death.
Victim Fund payments were completed in June.
But OHCHR also raised concerns about due process, including periods of ineffective or absent legal representation, restrictions affecting families and limited public access to proceedings.
The Easter case therefore illustrates the larger contradiction: Sri Lanka can move dramatically when political and judicial attention converges on a particular case, yet the broader institutional mechanisms required to prevent impunity remain unfinished.
OHCHR is particularly concerned about security-sector reform. It calls for effective vetting and warns that Sri Lankan security personnel deployed to international operations, including the UN-authorised multinational Gang Suppression Force in Haiti, should undergo robust human rights screening so that individuals credibly implicated in serious violations do not participate in international operations.
The UN’s recommendations are consequently sweeping. They include repeal of the PTA; reform of the Online Safety Act and provisions of the ICCPR Act; strengthening the Office on Missing Persons; an independent public prosecutor; security-sector reform; protection of victims and witnesses; meaningful devolution; return of military-occupied land; prison reform; protection of journalists and civil society; and international assistance for accountability. OHCHR also calls for a “formal, time-bound accountability plan”.
That demand exposes perhaps the most important weakness identified in the report: Sri Lanka has initiatives, investigations, committees and promises, but no clear overall roadmap capable of converting them into a coherent accountability process.
The High Commissioner had described his June 2025 visit to Sri Lanka as a “historic opportunity”. More than a year later, the UN warns that the opportunity is in danger of being squandered. The report does not say that nothing has changed. It acknowledges progress in corruption investigations, selected emblematic cases and the Easter Sunday investigations. The Government has also taken steps towards anti-corruption reforms and has released some military-held land.
But the NPP did not come to power merely promising incremental improvements. It promised to transform institutions that had survived decades of political change. On that central test, the UN assessment is unmistakably severe.
“Momentum for transformative change” risks being lost. Truth-seeking and reconciliation have “largely stalled”. Structural barriers to accountability remain. Surveillance and intimidation continue. Victims and families of the disappeared still wait for answers.
Sri Lanka’s political transition therefore faces a test far more consequential than whether individual investigations produce convictions. The question is whether the NPP can turn its reform rhetoric into institutions strong enough to outlast the Government itself.
For the victims of war, families of the disappeared, survivors of violence, journalists, activists and communities still fighting for land and recognition, the promise of change has already been made. The UN report’s message is that the time for promises is running out.
