Have the pledges been fulfilled? - Trincomalee activists hold hunger strike over broken promises

A symbolic hunger strike was held outside the Trincomalee Sivan Temple on Sunday, challenging the Sri Lankan government over whether it has honoured the pledges it made during the presidential election campaign.

The protest was organised by the Trincomalee-based social activist Unnaviratha Venthan, who said the demonstration was aimed at holding the government to account for those commitments. Participants set out seven demands and called for immediate action on each.

They called for the repeal of the Prevention of Terrorism Act; a ban on the use of prohibited explosives and illegal nets in fishing; the release of all political prisoners; a proper investigation into the Chemmani mass grave; an expedited investigation into the Easter Sunday attacks; the holding of provincial council elections across the country, including in the Northern and Eastern Provinces; and stronger measures against drugs.

Speaking to the media during the protest, organisers questioned whether the government had acted on the commitments it made to the public, and urged the authorities to deliver concrete solutions to these long-standing issues.

The demands echo grievances that have gone unresolved across successive administrations. The Prevention of Terrorism Act, which permits prolonged detention without charge and has been used overwhelmingly against Tamils and Muslims, has been the subject of repeal pledges by government after government, and remains in force despite sustained criticism from the United Nations and rights organisations. Tamil political prisoners, some held for well over a decade, have staged repeated hunger strikes and fasts of their own demanding release.

Provincial council elections have not been held since 2018, leaving the Northern and Eastern Provincial Councils dormant for years, an absence that has become a central demand of Tamil politics and one of the priorities identified by the six Tamil-speaking parties that formed a common platform last month. At Chemmani, meanwhile, court-supervised excavations have recovered hundreds of sets of human remains, including those of infants and children, though the process of identifying the dead has yet to begin and no one has been charged.