Research Directorate, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada

1. Political Situation

According to sources, Sri Lanka's 2022 economic and political crises brought on mass protests ["better known as the Aragalaya ('struggle')" (MRG 2025-03, 14)] against the ruling political regime and resulted in the ouster of then-president Gotabaya Rajapaksa (Freedom House 2024-02-29; The Guardian 2024-09-23; Aamer [2024-10]). Sources report that Rajapaksa's then-Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe declared a state of emergency on 17 July 2022 (UN 2022-08-08; CPA 2022-07-27), which "grant[ed] broad and discretionary powers to security forces and the military" allowing them to "detain protesters and search private properties without judicial supervision" (UN 2022-08-08). Sri Lanka's parliament elected Wickremesinghe [a six-time former prime minister (AFP 2024-08-07)] as president in July 2022 (CNN 2022-07-20; Gamaje & Kaur 2024-09-11; UN 2022-10-04, para. 6). Sources indicate that Wickremesinghe is a "key ally" to former president Rajapaksa (CNN 2022-07-20) or is "widely viewed as protecting the Rajapaksas' interests" (Crisis Group 2022-07-18). Human Rights Watch reports that in the 2 years that followed the protests, "some" macroeconomic improvements were made under an International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout scheme, "but millions [of Sri Lankans] continued to suffer acute harms to their economic, social, and cultural rights" (2025-01-16, 435). Freedom House similarly writes in its 2024 annual report that although there was "relative stability" under Wickremesinghe's rule, the administration "operated in ways that curtail civil liberties" (2024-02-29).

Sources report that a changing political landscape resulted in the election of Anura Kumara Dissanayake, the leader of the "centre-left" (MRG 2025-03, 14) or "left-wing" (Human Rights Watch 2025-01-16, 435) National People's Power (NPP) alliance [also known as Jathika Jana Balawegaya (JJB)], as president in September 2024 (Human Rights Watch 2025-01-16, 435; MRG 2025-03, 14). According to the Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA), a Sri Lankan NGO that produces research and studies on Sri Lankan public policy to strengthen institutions and promote good governance (CPA n.d.), the change of government "promised reform and reignited hope that a new political culture would emerge" (2025-06, 1). The same source adds, however, that in Dissanayake's first seven months in power, "the implementation of confidence-building measures and key governance and legal reforms have been delayed" and that "severe socio-economic challenges" and "human rights abuses persist" (CPA 2025-06, 1).

1.1 September 2024 Presidential Election

Sri Lanka elected Dissanayake as president in September 2024 (Aamer [2024-10]; Sri Lanka 2024-09-22, 1; US 2024-12-02, 1). Rajni Gamage and Kanika Kaur, a research fellow and a research analyst, respectively, at the National University of Singapore's Institute of South Asian Studies (ISAS), indicate in a research paper published by ISAS, that the "major candidates" included: Wickremesinghe, incumbent president who was campaigning on an independent platform "with a focus on IMF-led economic recovery"; Sajith Premadasa, who promotes "social democratic policies and pro-poor initiatives"; and Dissanayake of the NPP alliance, "who advocates for systemic change and anti-corruption measures" (Gamage & Kaur 2024-09-11). Sources note that Dissanayake is the first Sri Lankan president to not be "born into a political background" (The Guardian 2024-09-23) or to not be affiliated with the country's historically dominant political elite (Aamer [2024-10]; Crisis Group 2024-09). After Dissanayake's election, he dissolved parliament, set new parliamentary elections for 14 November 2024 (Crisis Group 2024-09; US 2024-10-07, 1), and appointed Harini Amarasuriya, an "academic" and "first-time parliamentarian," as prime minister of Sri Lanka (US 2024-10-07, 1).

1.2 November 2024 Parliamentary Elections

In November 2024, Dissanayake's NPP won the parliamentary elections, earning 62 percent of the vote and securing 159 of 225 seats in parliament (Crisis Group 2024-11; Sri Lanka 2024-11-15; US 2024-12-02, 1). According to an article by Neil DeVotta, a professor of politics and international affairs at Wake Forest University in North Carolina, which was published in the East Asia Forum (EAF) at the Australian National University, an online publication and quarterly magazine that provides analysis on politics, economics, business, law, security, international relations and society in Asia (EAF n.d.), while "[f]ew" members of Sri Lanka's minority groups voted for Dissanayake during the presidential elections, "many" voted for the NPP during the parliamentary elections, resulting in the NPP becoming "the first political grouping from the predominantly Sinhalese south to win Tamil and Muslim districts in the northeast" (DeVotta 2025-02-13). According to Minority Rights Group International (MRG), Sri Lanka has a diverse society formed by a Sinhalese majority who speaks Sinhala and is "mainly" Buddhist; two groups of Tamil speakers, "'Sri Lankan Tamils'" and "Malaiyaga Tamils," who are descended from recent immigrants, "including labourers brought to the island by the British to work on tea plantations," and who are predominantly Hindu with a Christian minority; and Muslims who reside in the country's northern and eastern regions and represent "about a third" of the population in the eastern region (2025-03, 6).

1.3 May 2025 Local Elections

According to sources, the NPP alliance won the most local council bodies in the local elections of 6 May 2025, securing 265 of 339 council bodies (Crisis Group 2025-05; ICWA 2025-05-19). Sources indicate however, that the NPP failed to gain outright majorities in several of the councils where it was elected (Colombo Telegraph 2025-07-04; ICWA 2025-05-19). According to Frontline, a biweekly English-language magazine based in India published by the Hindu, an Indian daily newspaper (Frontline n.d.), this means that the NPP "will be forced to work with other political parties or formations in many of the local bodies," despite securing almost double as many seats as the first runner-up, the Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) (2025-05-08).

2. Political Parties and Alliances

The website of the Sri Lanka's parliament lists the political parties that won seat(s) in the 2024 legislative elections:

• All Ceylon Makkal Congress (ACMC)
• All Ceylon Tamil Congress (ACTC)
• Democratic Tamil National Alliance
• Illankai Tamil Arasu Kadchi (ITAK)
• Independent Group 17 - 10
• NPP
• New Democratic Front
• Sarvajana Balaya
• SJB
• Sri Lanka Labour Party
• Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC)
• Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (Sri Lanka's People's Front, SLPP)
• United National Party (UNP) (Sri Lanka n.d.)
  
  

2.1 Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (People's Liberation Front, JVP) and the NPP

The Guardian notes that Dissanayake became the leader of the JVP in 2014; the party then spearheaded the creation of the NPP alliance in 2019 (The Guardian 2024-09-23). A US Congressional Research Service (CRS) report indicates that JVP was originally a Marxist party founded in the 1960s that led "insurrections" against "what it called 'the unlawful, unjust repression of the government'" in 1971 and from 1987-1990 (US 2024-10-07, 1). According to sources, the party led "violent uprisings" (Al Jazeera 2025-05-24) or "a bloody insurrection" (The Guardian 2024-09-23) in the 1970s and 1980s (Al Jazeera 2025-05-24; The Guardian 2024-09-23). The CRS notes, however, that the JVP became a "more moderate, mainstream party" under Dissanayake's leadership (US 2024-10-07, 1). Similarly, DeVotta writes that the JVP's original "Marxist dogma has … long lapsed" and it has transformed "into a more conventional left-leaning party" (2025-02-13). Al Jazeera reports that in the ensuing years, the party came to support Rajapaksa's government when the army defeated the Tamil separatist movement in 2009 (2025-05-24). The CRS report notes that until the 2024 elections, the party had never won a significant share of national support (US 2024-10-07, 1). MRG indicates that Dissanayake was perceived by "most" minority groups in Sri Lanka as a "Sinhala nationalist" (2025-03, 19). The source adds that although Dissanayake was elected thanks to "some minority votes," a larger share of minority groups "appeared to have supported the losing candidates" (MRG 2025-03, 19).

Dissanayake is also the leader of the NPP alliance (Aamer [2024-10]; US 2024-10-07, 2), which gained widespread attention during the 2022 economic crisis (US 2024-10-07, 2). Sources report that the NPP is a "broader leftist coalition" (The Guardian 2024-09-23) or a "coalition of socialist parties" (US 2024-10-07, 2), composed of "dozens of other smaller parties, activists and trade unions" (The Guardian 2024-09-23). Sources add that the coalition ran on an anti-corruption and economic reform platform (Aamer [2024-10]; Crisis Group 2024-09; The Guardian 2024-09-23). According to DeVotta, the NPP "is not the JVP," and the alliance's "new elite, while left-leaning, are products" of Sri Lanka's post-1977 economic turn to open markets (2025-02-13).

2.2 SLPP

According to the Political Handbook of the World 2022-2023, the SLPP was founded in 2016, fusing the Sri Lanka National Front (SLNF), led by Piyasena Dissanayake, and Our Sri Lanka Freedom Front (OSLFF); additionally, the alliance was joined by former president and prime minister Mahinda Rajapaksa (2023, 25). The source adds that the resignation of the Rajapaksa brothers in 2022 "reportedly led to a schism in the party" (Political Handbook of the World 2023, 25-26). Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports that the schism was widened when the party, a "once-dominant" nationalist Sinhalese party, appointed Namal Rajapaksa, Mahinda Rajapaksa's son and Gotabaya's nephew, as its presidential candidate for the 2024 elections, despite a "majority" of the party's legislators favouring then-incumbent president Wickremesinghe (2024-08-07). Indian Council of World Affairs (ICWA), an "autono[mous]" organization that conducts policy research on international relations and whose governing council is headed by the Vice President and the External Affairs Minister of India (ICWA [2025], 3, 5), reports that the SLPP won the local elections of 2018 and the presidential elections of 2019, under the leadership of Gotabaya Rajapaksa (2025-05-19).

The party won 3.14 percent of the vote in the 2024 parliamentary elections, securing 3 seats (Sri Lanka 2024-11-15).

2.3 UNP

MRG indicates that the UNP is a "major national level" political party (2025-03, 3). The UNP's website states that it is a "center-right party" that promotes neoliberal economic policies (n.d.). Sources indicate that the leader of the UNP is Wickremesinghe (Gamage & Kaur 2024-09-11, 2; UNP n.d.; Political Handbook of the World 2023, 36), although he ran as an independent candidate during the 2024 presidential elections (Gamage & Kaur 2024-09-11, 2). Ceylon Today, a Sri Lankan daily newspaper [1], notes that the UNP and SJB are considering the possibility of uniting in order "to jointly secure control of Local Government (LG) bodies, where opposition parties currently hold a collective majority" (2025-05-20). MRG adds that "in recent years," major national parties like the UNP have "divided and contested under different names as part of various coalitions" (2025-03, 8).

The party won 0.59 percent of the vote in the 2024 parliamentary elections, securing 1 seat (Sri Lanka 2024-11-15).

2.4 SJB

The Handbook reports that the SJB was formed in February 2020 as an electoral coalition (2023, 33). Sources report that its leader is Sajith Premadasa (ICWA 2025-05-19; MRG 2025-03, 19). MRG notes that Premadasa was among the 3 main Sinhala-Buddhist candidates during the 2024 presidential elections, in addition to the NPP's Dissanayake and Wickremesinghe (2025-03, 19). The source adds that the SJB is a UNP "breakaway party" (MRG 2025-03, 26).

The party came in second place during the 2024 parliamentary elections, securing 17.66 percent of the vote, and winning 40 seats (Sri Lanka 2024-11-15).

2.5 Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP)

The Handbook indicates that the SLFP was formed in 1951 and is led by Maithripala Sirisena, a former president of Sri Lanka who was elected in 2015 (2023, 26-27). According to Tamil Guardian, a news website covering Tamil issues, the SLFP is one of Sri Lanka's oldest Sinhalese national parties and is "traditional rivals" with the UNP (2024-08-06). The Handbook reports that under Sirisena's leadership, "a growing rift between" his and Rajapaksa's wings of the party led Rajapaksa to form the SLPP (2023, 27).

MRG indicates that "in recent years," major national parties like the SLFP have "divided and contested under different names as part of various coalitions" (2025-03, 8). For instance, Gamage and Kaur report that during the 2024 presidential election campaign, the SLFP, which has gone through in-party "power struggles," was split into three groups: the Dayasiri Jayasekara faction which supports the SJB, another faction which supports Wickremesinghe's candidacy, and a third splinter group which includes former president Maithripala Sirisena and which is "not backing any candidate" (2024-09-11, 6).

2.6 Minority Group-Based Parties

According to MRG, ITAK, SLMC and Ceylon Worker's Congress (CWC) are "[e]thnic minority" political parties that primarily represent their respective communities (2025-03, 3). The source notes that during the 2024 elections, ITAK formed an alliance with presidential candidate Sajith Premadasa and the SJB (MRG 2025-03, 19). Gamage and Kaur note that the CWC and Tamil People's Alliance, which are also Tamil minority political parties, divided their support between Wickremesinghe and Premadasa (2024-09-11).

MRG reports that the ACTC is "on the extreme spectrum of Tamil nationalism," as they "strongly oppose the unitary structure of the state" and advocate for federalism for regions in the north and east (2025-03, 33). The source adds that the ACTC called for a boycott of the 2024 presidential elections (MRG 2025-03, 33).

3. Treatment of Political Opponents and Protesters by Authorities

According to Human Rights Watch, civil space in Sri Lanka in 2024 was "restricted by repressive laws and arbitrary actions by police and security agencies," especially in majority-Tamil regions in the east and north under the Wickremesinghe presidential administration, and that both Wickremesinghe and Dissanayake have "not supported accountability for large-scale violations that occurred during Sri Lanka's 1983-2009 civil war between the government and the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE)" (2025-01-16, 435, 437). CIVICUS, a global network of civil society organizations headquartered in South Africa that advocates for strong "citizen action and civil society" (CIVICUS n.d.), similarly rates the state of civic space in its report on the Dissanayake-led government as "'repressed'," due to continued "restrictions and disruption of peaceful protests – at times with excessive use of force – and the stifling of journalists," as well as the targeting and criminalization of activists based on "defamation and counter-terror laws" (2025-06-30). The source adds that there has also been "a systematic failure to address past crimes" against such individuals (CIVICUS 2025-06-30).

According to the CIVICUS monitoring report published in June 2025, students have been arrested, protests have been disrupted, and "thousands" of protesters from the 2022 uprising "continue to face legal action" (2025-06-30). The source adds that journalists also "continue to face harassment and restrictions" as the government kept the "restrictive Online Safety Act [2] with amendments" (CIVICUS 2025-06-30). INFORM Human Rights Documentation Centre (INFORM), a Colombo-based NGO that monitors and reports on human rights issues in Sri Lanka, notes that Tamil civilians and activists in particular "continue to face various forms of systemic discrimination" in the form of "police harassment, suppression of linguistic rights, and the abuse of power by law enforcement" (2025-06, 2, 9). For instance, according to CIVICUS, between mid-January 2025 and June 2025, authorities have "criminalised an individual for his support of Palestine, arrested a Tamil youth activist and summoned a Tamil women's rights activist for interrogation" (2025-06-30).

The Daily Financial Times (Daily FT), a Sri Lanka daily business newspaper, reports that Dissanayake has promised to "expedite the process of returning land" in the northern region of the country to their "rightful owners" (Daily FT 2025-02-01). However, an article published by the Daily Mirror, a Sri Lankan daily newspaper owned by Wijeya Newspapers Ltd. (WNL) which also owns Daily FT (WNL n.d.), indicates that there were protests in Colombo in July 2025 organized by Tamil people from Jaffna demanding the return of those lands, with a land activist interviewed stating that despite promises made, "nothing concrete has been done so far" (Daily Mirror 2025-07-16).

Speaking to Al Jazeera during a commemorative event for Tamil victims of the Sri Lankan civil war, "a human rights lawyer and former commissioner of the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka (HRCSL), an independent body (HRCSL 2025-01-06, para. 1), stated that "'[t]here isn't that climate of fear which existed during the two Rajapaksa regimes'," referencing Mahinda and Gotabaya Rajapaksa, brothers and former presidents of Sri Lanka during 13 of 17 years between 2005 and 2022 (Al Jazeera 2025-05-24). The article adds that "most" attendees of the commemorative events in 2025 said that unlike in previous years, "their memorials had gone largely unobstructed, although there were reports of police disrupting one event in the eastern part of the country" (Al Jazeera 2025-05-24). However, in a case reported by Tamil Guardian, on 13 April 2025, "a Tamil driver in Vavuniya "was forcefully dragged by the Sri Lankan police officers" and "forcibly" taken to the Vavuniya Police Station after requesting that the police issue his traffic fine in Tamil rather than Sinhala (2025-04-13).

Human Rights Watch indicates that Dissanayake campaigned on a promise to abolish the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) (2025-01-16, 435). According to the CPA, the PTA initially adopted as a "temporary provision," was later converted to permanent legislation and has since been "used to terrorise generations of Sri Lankans, largely targeting those from ethnic and religious minorities, activists, dissidents, and journalists and normalised torture, with it entrenching a culture of impunity" (2025-04-03). INFORM indicates in June 2025 that Prime Minister Amarasuriya announced that the government will be repealing the PTA and taking steps to replace the existing legislation (2025-06, 6). Information on the status of the PTA's abolishment since the prime minister's announcement could not be found among the sources consulted by the Research Directorate within the time constraints of this Response.

Sources report that a man was arrested under the PTA for pasting stickers that were "anti-Israel" (The Sunday Times 2025-03-30) or against Israel's military operations in Gaza (NewsWire 2025-04-07). According to an April 2025 post by Amnesty International's South Asia regional office on the social media platform X, a detention order was signed by President Dissanayake in his role as a Minister of Defence in March 2025 against the individual in Colombo under the powers given to him through the PTA without providing "any evidence of criminal wrongdoing legitimising his arrest or continued detention" in the weeks that followed (Amnesty International 2025-05-25). NewsWire, a Sri Lankan online media platform which focuses on current affairs, sports and business news (NewsWire n.d.), notes that the individual was released on bail on 7 April 2025 after "strong public backlash and protests" (2025-04-07).

Writing in January 2025, the HRCSL reports that "women politicians and political activists continue to face verbal abuse and harassment both by members of the public and their peers" (2025-01-06, para. 35). Similarly, Hashtag Generation, a Sri Lankan nonprofit organization that promotes "meaningful civic and political participation of youth, especially young women and young people from minority groups" in Sri Lanka (Hashtag Generation n.d.), indicates that "[w]omen candidates faced particularly pointed gender-based harassment"; for example 2 female NPP candidates were "frequently" targeted by "misogynistic" posts and "homophobic rhetoric" respectively (Hashtag Generation [2024], 13).

This Response was prepared after researching publicly accessible information currently available to the Research Directorate within time constraints. This Response is not, and does not purport to be, conclusive as to the merit of any particular claim for refugee protection. Please find below the list of sources consulted in researching this Information Request.

Notes

[1] Ceylon Today is owned by the Alles family and its majority shareholder is Tiran Alles (Verité Research & RSF 2020). The Sri Lankan Department of Government Information's Guide to Media 2024 states that Tiran Alles was still chairman of the media company (Sri Lanka 2024, 15). Tiran Alles was also a Member of Parliament from 2020 to 2024 with the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (Sri Lanka's People's Front, SLPP) and was also associated with the United National Party (UNP) (Sri Lanka [2024]).

[2] The Online Safety Act enables a government commission to define "'prohibited statements'," to recommend the removal of such contents by internet providers and to disable access for offenders; it also bans "'communicating a false statement'" that "poses a threat to national security, public health or public order or promotes feelings of ill-will and hostility between different classes of people or voluntarily causes disturbance to any assembly lawfully engaged in the performance of religious worship or religious ceremonies" (CIVICUS 2025-06-30).

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Additional Sources Consulted

Oral sources: Centre for Policy Alternatives; Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka; professor at a university in the US whose research focuses on political and military issues in South Asia, including Sri Lanka; research fellow at a university in Singapore whose work focuses on governance and state transition, as well as development and inequality in Sri Lanka; Sri Lanka Campaign for Peace & Justice; Verité Research.

Internet sites, including: Asian Human Rights Commission; Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada; Asylum Research Centre; BBC; The Diplomat; Encyclopedia Britannica; The Hindu; International Foundation for Electoral Systems; Jesuit Refugee Service, South Asia branch; Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka; Law & Society Trust; Netherlands – Ministry of Foreign Affairs; The New Indian Express; South Asia Terrorism Portal; Sri Lanka Brief; Sri Lanka Campaign for Peace & Justice; UN – Sri Lanka Accountability Project; UK – Home Office; United States Institute of Peace; Westminster Foundation for Democracy; Wilson Center.