* Deforestation regulation EU will ban goods grown or produced on land recently cleared of forest; exporters must provide geo-location data and documentation

* EU authorities can investigate supply chains on suspicion of forced labour; companies must present credible evidence of compliance

* Sri Lanka’s strong labour laws offer an advantage, but exporters must build human-rights due-diligence systems and monitor high-risk suppliers

* Sri Lanka remains attractive in textiles, apparel, rubber and agricultural goods benefiting from GSP+ low tariffs, and has growing potential in IT and business services despite no GSP+ cover

In the wake of Sri Lanka facing headwinds in its export growth because of U.S. tariffs and GSP+, it is now poised to encounter further challenges to overcome in accessing the European Union market because of new laws that will come into effect after 2027, according to a German expert.

In a virtual address to the Sri Lankan stakeholders from Berlin last week, Markus Loning, an expert on human rights and responsible business, said one of them is the EU deforestation regulation, which is relevant to the import of the items – wood, cocoa, coffee, palm oil, leather and beef, soy and rubber.

“Many of these don’t apply to Sri Lanka and are not so important, but at least two of them do. It is important to take this into account. It’s still a while. It’s not so long until this comes into force. What the EU deforestation regulation actually demands is that companies can only place goods on the EU market if they have not been the cause of deforestation,” he said.

Elaborating on the reason for the enforcement of such a regulation, he said the European Union does not want to incentivise further deforestation in any way.

“We want to refrain from buying products grown on plots of land where trees have been cut recently. They (European Union) are taking a baseline, which is a couple of years back. Then, they are looking at what is the plot of land, where this material comes from. That is why you will need to collect geo-location data and documents. They will ask whether this plot of land has been deforested recently. So any product that is linked to forest destruction will not be able to enter the European single market,” he said.

He said the next would be the EU forced labour regulation. Once this law comes into effect, the European Union authorities will investigate into supply chains if there is a suspicion of forced labour, but the burden of proof is different from the deforestation regulation.

The burden of proof is with the authorities in this case. The authorities must have suspicion and evidence. They will then go for an investigation, and the supplier will be able to demonstrate that this is true or not,” he said.

He said that it should be ensured that the goods imported are not made with the help of forced labour.

“Companies are expected to show credible evidence that no forced labour is involved. What’s important about this law is that it applies to all sectors and all countries. There are no exceptions. Anyone importing into the EU or selling goods inside the EU is in the scope of this law. This is something that has been heavily discussed back and forth, but at the end of the day, there was quite a strong consensus here that this is something that the EU is going to stick to,” he said

However, he said that Sri Lanka has very good labour laws in place and the standards are strong.

Key questions will target high-risk supply chains, including Sri Lankan factory suppliers. Companies must set up a human-rights due-diligence system to show their own operations meet legal standards—health, safety, wages and working conditions—and that they monitor high-risk suppliers. Relevant certificates support and document these efforts, according to him.

There’s a clear business opportunity for Sri Lankan companies as an alternative production base—especially in textiles and apparel, rubber-based and agricultural goods, which benefit from GSP+ low tariffs. In addition, IT and business services have strong potential to grow in the EU market, even though they are not covered by GSP+, as this applies to all business with Europe, he said.

EU imports from Sri Lanka amounted to 2.6 billion Euros in 2023. Sri Lanka is now under watch by the European Union for the extension of the GSP+ under the revised criterion to be effective after 2027.

The Centre for Human Rights and Research has urged the government to announce the timeline and electoral mechanism for the long-delayed provincial council elections, which have not been held for over a decade.

In a statement issued this week, the Centre called on authorities to make public their plans “without delay,” if they are indeed committed to holding the elections within this year as outlined in the government’s official election manifesto.

Quoting a senior government source, a weekend newspaper reported that the administration is currently considering holding the elections under the previous proportional representation system.

Executive Director of the Centre for Human Rights and Research, Rajith Keerthi Tennakoon, emphasised that provincial councils must once again function as “governance by the people, for the people.”

He added that it is the collective responsibility of all stakeholders to ensure that the elections are held as soon as possible and that elected representatives return to govern these key regional institutions.

A complaint has been lodged with the police requesting the excavation of a burial site where over 180 unarmed Tamil individuals, including infants, have been buried after being killed by state defence forces.

The complainant is a person who lost ten family members in the massacre.

The 35th anniversary of the Sathurukondan massacre, regarding which strong evidence has been recorded before a presidential commission implicating state defence forces, was commemorated by the Tamil community in eastern Sri Lanka with offerings of flowers and the lighting of lamps.

In his complaint to the Kokkuvil Police Station in Batticaloa, Vairamuttu Kulandavadivel describes how he hid and witnessed the army surrounding his village and abducting ten members of his family, including his mother, father, younger sister, younger brother, grandfather, grandmother, and three children of his sisters, three and a half decades ago.

He requests that his relatives’ bodies be recovered, as there are eyewitnesses to the place where they were buried after being killed.

“There are survivors who witnessed that they were hacked, shot and buried at the Boys’ Town camp in Sathurukondan. Therefore, there is a need to recover our relatives’ bodies.”

Through his complaint, he requests the police to conduct excavations at the Boys’ Town camp in Sathurukondan, where villagers including his relatives are said to have been buried.

“I am filing a complaint seeking that excavations be conducted at the Boys’ Town military camp in Sathurukondan, where our relatives have been buried.”

Sathurukondan had not been included in the list of mass graves recently revealed by Justice Minister Harshana Nanayakkara as sites under investigation.

The 35th anniversary commemoration, held on the evening of 9 September 2025 near the monument built at the Panichchaiyadi junction in Sathurukondan, was organized by the relatives of the 184 victims from four villages who were murdered on 9 September 1990.

According to evidence presented before the Presidential Commission of Inquiry into Involuntary Removal or Disappearances of Persons in the Northern and Eastern Provinces, chaired by retired High Court Justice Krishnapillai Palakidner and appointed by former President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga on 4 January 1995, officials of the Sathurukondan Boys’ Town camp were implicated in the massacre.

The only person who survived the massacre carried out by the army was Kandasamy Krishnakumar from Pilleiyaradi, who was 27 at the time.

According to him, at around 5.30 pm on 9 September 1990, a group of armed soldiers from the Boys’ Town military camp in Sathurukondan had entered the villages of Sathurukondan, Kokkuvil, Panichchaiyadi and Pilleyaradi, and had ordered villagers to come out of their houses.

In addition, 185 villagers who came out to the streets were surrounded, had their hands tied behind their backs, and were taken to the military camp.

Among them were 38 villagers from Sathurukondan, 47 from Kokkuvil, 37 from Panichchaiyadi and 62 from Pilleyaradi.

Among those arrested by the military were 85 women including pregnant mothers.

The group also included 42 children under the age of ten and 28 people over the age of 60.

Even though the soldiers had told the villagers that they were being taken to the military camp for an ordinary investigation and would be released after questioning, no one returned home for several hours except one.

According to the Palakidner commission’s reports, Krishnakumar, showing his wounds, had said that soldiers stabbed him three times in the chest.

He had also seen around ten other people lying on the ground with stab wounds.

Rape cases involving women

The following is an excerpt from the shocking statement given to the Tamil Net website by Krishnakumar three years later, in which he had revealed the horrific acts against women committed by soldiers.

He had witnessed this while lying on the ground after being wounded.

“They brought girls who were completely naked. Their mouths were filled with soil, and they were raped repeatedly. Then the soldiers brought swords and cut off their breasts. Three of the girls were pushed into a well. While they continued to rape, kill and dispose of bodies in pits, I slowly crawled out in the dark. After the soldiers left, I crawled toward the fence of the camp and hid in the scrub jungle behind it. Later, the soldiers brought tires and set the bodies in the pits on fire. The fire burned until around 3 am. After it was extinguished, the pit was filled with soil.”

Family members of the massacre victims allege that justice has not yet been served despite the fact that it has been revealed before a presidential commission that army personnel and village guards committed that crime.

Slain journalist Mylvanagm Nimalarajan was the Jaffna correspondent for Virakesari newspaper and for Sinhala weeklies Haraya and Ravaya

The case of Mylvanagam Nimalarajan’ states that Sri Lanka has systematically protected the murderers and perpetrators of these crimes

Nimalarajan’s daughter in one of the accounts said she has placed hopes on the incumbent government to ensure justice to her father’s murder

As many as 44 media workers and journalists have been killed between 2000 -2010 and a recently launched report titled ‘Killing Sri Lankan journalists: The case of Mylvanagam Nimalarajan’ states that Sri Lanka has systematically protected the murderers and perpetrators of these crimes. The report was launched during an event organised by ‘Families of the Disappeared’ to commemorate the work of this brave journalist and it is an example of the ongoing impunity surrounding the assassination of Nimalarajan. He was the Jaffna correspondent for Virakesari newspaper and for Sinhala weeklies Haraya and Ravaya. He reported for Tamilnet and was a stringer for BBC’s Tamil and Sinhala service. The report underscores the systemic failure to prosecute those responsible, failures that may have tragically enabled further violations, including subsequent targeted killings by suspects who were never brought to justice.

Who is accountable for crimes committed against journalists?

The event commenced by lighting lamps and paying tribute to everyone who had to pay the price with their lives for exposing the truth during the height of the armed conflict. Speaking at the event, Brito Fernando, Families of the Disappeared Chairman and human rights activist said that there are no records to prove the actual number of people who have been subject to enforced disappearances during 1971, 1989 uprisings and during the civil war in the North. “There is a serious concern with regards to accountability around the disappearances and assassinations of journalists. Despite various obligations made at the UNHRC sessions in Geneva, we haven’t achieved anything tangible with regards to the human rights situation in the country, particularly in terms of seeking justice for what happened to Nimalarajan and other journalists. When the incumbent government assumed power many families of victims subject to enforced disappearances had faith about the accountability process and ensuring justice to their loved ones, particularly because these individuals have stayed loyal to the party. Even Nimalarajan’s daughter in one of the accounts said she has placed hopes on the incumbent government to ensure justice to her father’s murder. We have cried and wept enough and we need to seek truth, justice and compensation. There’s a gap between what needs to be done and what could be done and it is important to bridge this gap,” he underscored.

Ongoing impunity on Tamil journalists

N. Vidyadharan, Editor of the Murasu Newspaper had been a close associate of Nimalarajan. Sharing his brief experience with Nimalarajan, he said that after 1990, the situation in Jaffna was different. “There was no social media and news was propagated to people mainly via print or radio. I remember warning him to take care of his life but he couldn’t save his life. Even though some progress has been made on cases such as Prageeth Ekneligoda and Lasantha Wickrematunga, there’s impunity on Tamil journalists. With regards to Nimalarajan’s case it’s easy to investigate and find culprits. The Prevention to Terrorism Act (PTA) was introduced to crush terrorism but state terrorism continues. Tamil journalists are being punished for exposing the truth. If the ruling party is keen to seek the truth we are there to support these investigations,” he added.

According to Chandana Keerthi Bandara, ex-Senior Producer at BBC Sinhala Service Nimalarajan would pedal his bicycle around the military-infested Jaffna peninsula to wherever the story was, be it a scene of a bomb blast, a family searching for their disappeared or powerful politicians engaged in vote-rigging or whether it was Tamils braving the odds to achieve a semblance of ordinary life. In his recollection of Nimalarajan, Bandara states that he had no equipment to file a report online; his community lacked electricity, let alone the internet. “Instead, Nimalarajan wrote these stories by putting pen to paper, with passion and objectivity, then he awaited the telephone call from London and would read them out,” the account read.

A call to end impunity against all crimes

Speaking at the event, senior journalist and media rights activist Mandana Ismail Abeywickrema said Nimalarajan was murdered two years after she joined media. “Back then I worked at The Sunday Leader newspaper and we wrote about his murder. I still recall the story of his sister and I was in complete shock because I was only 20 at the time and it was the first time I heard an incident of this nature. But the fact that justice has not been served to this individual or his family even 25 years later is a something that we should be ashamed of. The murder or disappearance of any individual is a blow to humanity. This report includes faces of 44 journalists who have been shot, murdered or disappeared and each one of them have their own families and parents. They have been bearing the brunt of these atrocities for decades. I remember hanging one of Nimalarajan’s photos in our editorial. As years passed by, the collection of such photographs of journalists increased. In 2009, my own editor Lasantha Wickrematunga was also assassinated and we had to add his photo as well to this collection. When this happened only we realized the trauma experienced by the families. For how long should we keep counting these incidents?” she questioned.

She said that it took a while for people to question who is accountable for these atrocities. “But we ultimately took to the streets and longed to make a change. One such example of change was the change in government in 2015. But I would describe it as one of the biggest betrayals in the history of Sri Lankan politics. People voted for change, for justice. We lit lamps near Lasantha Wickrematunga’s grave and voted at this election. But several years later we are still seeking justice. If we want to progress as an advanced society we need to end impunity against all crimes,” she underscored.

Failures and coverups

The report critically examines how the Sri Lankan justice system responded to Nimalarajan’s assassination, drawing on a detailed analysis of the official court record, from the day after his death until November 2021, when the suspects were released on bail. The report reveals that despite the best efforts of some individuals within the system, the investigation process was never designed or intended to lead to justice and accountability.

Speaking about the government’s response at the UNHRC sessions in Geneva, K. W Janaranjana, senior journalist and Editor-in-Chief of Anidda newspaper said that every September, successive regimes have asked for more time saying that they are a new government etc. in an attempt to delay the process of justice for those who are longing for truth and justice. “This government too will follow a similar path. Today we are talking about media freedom, human rights and so on. But at the time when Nimalarajan engaged in reporting, there was uncertainty hovering around reporters. Prior to his death, the Army referred to him as someone supporting the LTTE. He was blamed for keeping a file of politicians’ names and details. Some even claimed that he was going to submit it to the LTTE. The Eelam People’ Democratic Party (EPDP), LTTE, Army and various racist factions were watching Nimalarajan but despite all these obstacles, Nimalarajan did his reporting without any sort of protection. He is a hero and we need to respect him for his work,” he added.

He further said that Nimalarajan’s house was located in a high security zone. “But his assassins passed through military checkpoints, murdered him and left without leaving any trace. The Jaffna hospital was situated 1-2 km away from his house. When his family members informed the Army about the incident, the Army had said that they would send a jeep. But no jeep arrived and all casualties were taken to hospital in a tractor. While on their way, the shortcut to the hospital was barricaded and they had to take the longer route to reach the hospital. This is how he was assassinated. All facts indicate that this was very well planned,” Janaranjana added.

Shedding light on how investigations could have been expedited, he explained that a scene of crime is an important aspect that could draw links to perpetrators. “But it also depends on the criminal investigator. The report indicates how the investigations attempted to coverup all possible links to perpetrators which is one reason why it had been an uphill task to serve justice to Nimalarajan. The report speaks about the role of the Attorney General and I believe that the role of the judiciary too should be mentioned. Shouldn’t the judiciary be given authority to conduct investigations under special circumstances? One basic approach is to make judgements based on evidence presented in courts. But Sri Lanka doesn’t have the inquisitorial system where a court or judge actively investigates the facts of a case rather than being an impartial referee between opposing parties. Justice wasn’t served for Nimalarajan or his family. But at least his body was there for his family members to perform last rites and mourn his loss. There are thousands of families who haven’t even seen the bodies of their loved ones who have been subject to enforced disappearances,” he said in conclusion.

The report further issues recommendations to the Sri Lankan government, Human Rights Council, Member States and international community, government of UK, media institutions and press freedom groups and to the BBC.

Some of the main recommendations include setting up an independent investigative mechanism with international participation, establishing an independent office of the Special Counsel, engagement with international accountability mechanisms, promotion of victim participation and witness protection, support documentation and legal advocacy, champion public memorialisation and support to the family.