““Political rights have been preserved by traitors…the liberty of the mind by heretics.”Robert G Ingersoll (The Great Infidels)
On February 12, 2015, the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe administration appointed Dilrukshi Dias Wickramasinghe as the director general of the Bribery Commission. Rooting out corruption was a key pillar of the administration’s mandate. Deputy Solicitor General Wickramasinghe was regarded as an honest official unafraid to reach high to nab the corrupt.
One year and eight months later, she was gone from the job.
On August 31, 2016, the Bribery Commission had indicted Gotabaya Rajapaksa and three former navy commanders – not to mention Nissanka Senadhipathi, the controversial head of Avant Garde group of companies – over the floating armouries case. They were brought to court and charged with causing a loss of Rs 11.4 billion to the state. On October 12, President Sirisena went on a verbal rampage publicly, calling the incident ‘disgusting’ and claiming he knew nothing about it. “These commissions cannot carry out political agendas,” he raged. “They must understand their remit”. Five days later, Ms Wickramasinghe resigned from Bribery Commission and returned to the AG’s Department.
The story didn’t end there. In September 2019, the Public Services Commission interdicted Ms Wickramasinghe with immediate effect due to a supposed phone conversation with Nissanka Senadhipathi, a recording of which was released on You Tube. Subsequent investigations revealed that the video was doctored and Ms Wickramasinghe the victim of an operation aimed at snaring her. She was attending a dinner with then minister Wajira Abeywardena. He got a call and insisted on giving the phone to her. The conversation was recorded, then altered to give the impression of collusion.
Gotabaya Rajapaksa was not the only Rajapaksa Ms Wickramasinghe had in her sights. She had also begun an investigation into the assets of parliamentarian Namal Rajapaksa. In December 2015, the Commission told him to produce an affidavit. He wanted more time and was given three months. When no affidavit was forthcoming, the Commission summoned him. His lawyer wrote to the commission challenging the legality of the summons. Since the Commission then didn’t have the powers it does now, Ms Wickramasinghe went to the Supreme Court against Mr Rajapaksa. In September 2016, a three-judge bench headed by CJ K Sripavan rejected Mr Rajapaksa’s preliminary objections and directed the Commission to file contempt charges against the parliamentarian. The charges were filed on October 16, 2016. It was Ms Wickramasinghe’s final action as director general before she resigned the next day.
Had the current Anti-Corruption Act been enacted in 2015, Mr Rajapaksa would have been arrested by the Bribery Commission in 2016 and not a decade later. Had Gotabaya Rajapaksa not disembowelled the CID in 2019, Namal Rajapaksa’s alleged role in the Airbus scandal would have come out in 2020. When Kapila Chandrasena and his wife were arrested in 2020 (after a UK Crown Court Judgement revealed that Airbus paid a $2million bribe to the latter), Deputy Solicitor General Thusith Mudalige told the court that some of the money had been transferred to two companies, including one owned by Nimal Perera implicated in a money laundering case against Namal Rajapaksa. He also complained to Magistrate Ranga Dissanayake that the police were staling the investigation, leading to the following exchange:
“Magistrate: Do you (CID) have any trouble or difficulty conducting this investigation?
CID: (Silent).
Magistrate: If you have any trouble, please inform court.
CID: (Silent).
Magistrate: The Attorney General has provided certain instructions to the CID but they had not been complied with properly. So my question is, why do the police always inform court that they need to obtain AG’s advice in cases if they do not comply with them?
CID: (Silent).
Magistrate: How can you question a person over the receipt of alleged money without obtaining details?
CID: (Silent)…
Remanding the suspects till March 4, the Magistrate also considered “the slack manner of the CID in conducting the investigation as it had not fully committed to discover the material regarding the money received in Sri Lanka regarding the Airbus deal.”
The arrest of Namal Rajapaksa by the Bribery Commission in 2026 is not a witch hunt but an action repeatedly deferred due to political pressure; this should be followed with a speedy indictment and a fair trial. There is a looming threat to democracy, but it lies elsewhere, in the promises the government is dishonouring and the new laws it is planning to introduce.
Promises not kept
In 1973, the ‘progressive’ government of Sirima Bandaranaike enacted the Press Council Bill. Section 15 of the new Act criminalised the publication of ‘profane matter’ defined as anything ‘intended to insult any religion or the founder of any religion, any deity or saint venerated by the followers of any religion.’ On October 31, 1972, BA Siriwardane, the legendary editor of Aththa, wrote an editorial mocking gods Ganesh and Kataragama, as ‘elephant-head’ and ‘six-face’ (ali-oluwa and saya-muhuna). He explained that he wanted to mock the deities before irreverence was criminalised by the Bill’s enactment.
The main opposition UNP was fiercely critical of the Bill promising to repeal it. Once back in power with a five sixth majority, it reneged, using the Act to silence critics.
In 2023, the Ranil Wickremesinghe administration enacted the Online Safety Bill amidst fierce criticism. The NPP went to courts against the bill, promised to repeal it, and has honoured that pledge only in the breach. In February 2026, the police used the Act to summon award-winning journalist Tharindu Jayawardena without bothering to give a reason. The first case under the Online Safety Act was concluded in Colombo Magistrate Court recently.
Recently, the Appeal Court granted bail to a defendant who was arrested in 2009 under the PTA and spent 17 long years in jail. His baby daughter was just a year old when he was arrested and 18 when he was finally released. In his judgement, Justice Hettiarachchi observed that “prolonged incarceration had ceased to serve the limited purposes of pre-trial detention and had instead assumed the character of punishment, contrary to the constitutional provision of presumption of innocence”
The JVP/NPP’s pledge to abolish the PTA too is being observed in the breach. In its latest report, the UN Human Rights Commission noted that it had received information about 46 PTA related detention cases in 2025 and 12 cases up to March 2026. When two young Lankan Muslims were detained under the PTA for opposing the genocide in Gaza, the president himself came to the defence of police repression on freedom of speech and peaceful protest. Since then, the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka has ruled the second arrest illegal while the OIC who made the first arrest has made a public apology for his actions in open court in order to escape a fundamental rights case. He also paid the victim two million rupees. Whether any disciplinary measures have been taken against him is unknown; equally unknown is the source of that two million in ready cash. The government is planning to replace the PTA with the Protection of State from Terrorism Act which too could be used to detain citizens for prolonged periods sans a conviction.
The practice of police shooting suspects while on outings to uncover hidden weapons was a Gotabaya Rajapaksa legacy instilled during the first Mahinda Rajapaksa presidency. This practice is deplored by politicians when in opposition and justified once in power. The NPP is no exception. In February 2025, the Kotahena police shot and killed two suspects arrested for a murder. It was a test case for the fledgling government. Many of its civil society supporters thought the government would condemn the action and bring the perpetrators to justice. Instead, the government indirectly defended this extra-judicial killing. According to the HRC report, there were 18 custodial deaths in 2025 and three up to April 2026.
The story is chronicled in Mahawamsa and popularised by the late Simon Navagattegama in his drama Subha saha Yasa. King Yasalalaka Tissa and his gatekeeper Subha looked alike. The monarch got the gatekeeper to exchange places with him, to prank his ministers. The clueless ministers paid obeisance to the gatekeeper dressed as king. The king laughed and the gatekeeper ordered him to be killed for lèse majesté. The king was executed and the gatekeeper became king. Once the gatekeeper sits on the throne, he is no longer the gatekeeper but the ruler who would do anything – including against those who helped his ascent – to keep his throne.
Looming shadows
In June 2014, Transparency International held a three-day workshop on investigative journalism in a hotel in Negombo. Midway, a well-organised mob invaded the premises carrying printed placards (bearing colour photographs of some of the journalists). They accused the participants of being ‘traitors’. Instead of ordering the protestors out, the police demanded the cancellation of the workshop (http://www.sundaytimes.lk/140608/news/mob-stops-tis-workshop-police-role-questioned-102931.html). When questioned about the incident, Media Minister Keheliya Rambukwella defended the cancellation of the workshop as ‘very appropriate’. If the workshop was attacked, the NGOs would have used it to make anti-Sri Lankan propaganda he explained.
A series of new laws being introduced by the NPP government might create an enabling environment for the re-enactment of such Rajapaksa-era grotesquery. Take, for instances, the new NGO bill (which is a recycling of a bill proposed by Tiran Alles during the Wickremesinghe presidency, according to Ambika Sathkunanadan). The bill seeks to bring under the NGO umbrella almost any organisation that is not governmental, from trusts and foundations to limited liability companies. A Competent Authority will be established. All non-governmental organisations will have to register with the CA and will be under its control. This CA and the police will have the power to enter the premises of these organisation and to access all records. The registration must be renewed every three years. All registered organisations must refrain from any activity which can adversely affect sovereignty and territorial integrity, induce or cause public disorder, or affect the safety and interests of the general public. Which, given past experience, could be mean anything from holding a workshop on investigative journalism to publishing a book on clerical child abuse.
The government is also planning to bring a bill to establish a statutory body called the Charted Institute of Media Professionals in Sri Lanka (CIMP). Going by the draft, the purpose is to install a politically controlled institution to control Lankan mediascape. The media minister will appoint an interim council consisting of ministry secretary and six members approved by the minister. This council will then draft rules for establishing a permanent governing council. A disciplinary committee will be set up to punish media personnel for professional misconduct – a term left undefined and thus can include anything. The council can suspend or revoke membership of the CIMP, thereby depriving dissenting journalists of livelihood since membership would be mandatory to be considered bona-fide media personnel.
Then there’s the amendment to the anti-corruption act. This will, among other deleterious clauses, ban citizens from using asset declarations for anything other than the lodging of a complaint with the Bribery Commission. Serious or satirical commentary on the asset declarations would become a punishable offense. It is easy to surmise that this particular clause was inserted to spare the blushes of those supposedly asset-less JVP politicians who were revealed by their asset declarations to be unusually well-endowed.
This month, well known public interest lawyer Achala Seneviratne was arrested by the Trincomalee police on a false charge. She got bail from courts – though the police wanted her remanded. If the proposed bills are enacted, the new laws (with their enormous potential for abuse and legalised repression) will be implemented by a police with a proven record of miscarriages of justice. While Tamils, Muslims, and Christians will be the main targets, Sinhala-Buddhists too will not be spared. But the main victim will be Lanka’s struggling democracy. Where the state seeks to control everything, democracy survives only on paper.
