Legislating Silence: The New Legal Battles for Freedom of Expression in Sri Lanka

Photo courtesy of Article 19

Over the past two years, Sri Lanka’s legislative landscape has become a testing ground for the future of free expression. Freedom of expression has always been a fragile promise in Sri Lanka’s democracy, a right often celebrated in principle and constrained in practice. Yet in recent times this fragility has deepened into what can only be described as a structural transformation of speech.

A new generation of laws and legislative proposals, introduced in the language of safety, order and integrity, are reshaping how citizens may speak, publish or even think aloud. The report “Challenging the Boundaries: The Impact of Current and Proposed Laws on Freedom of Expression in Sri Lanka” observes that these laws “extend state power into nearly every sphere of expression,” creating an “architecture of control” that threatens to normalize censorship. The result is a new legal battlefield for freedom of expression, one fought not in the streets but in the statutes and silences that govern civic life.

The expanding net of control

The Online Safety Act (OSA), enacted in January 2024, is emblematic of this new control regime. Marketed as a measure to prevent cyberbullying, hate speech and disinformation, the Act grants the Online Safety Commission, appointed by the president, broad and unilateral powers to decide what constitutes “false,” “offensive” or “harmful” online content.

The report notes that the Act’s vague definitions of “false statement” and “public order” create a “pervasive ambiguity that can criminalize legitimate criticism, satire, or political debate.” It further highlights that the OSA was passed “without meaningful public consultation,” ignoring calls from civil society and the Bar Association to ensure independent oversight and judicial review.

Within months of its enactment, several arrests demonstrated its chilling reach. The report cites examples, including the first arrest under the OSA in February 2024, where a social media user was detained for alleged criticism of government officials. Other cases involved defamation suits by online money lending companies and even the Army Commander’s complaint against online videos. These early cases, the report says, reveal how the OSA has been “weaponized to regulate online dissent under the guise of maintaining digital civility.”

Just as digital space is being policed, the proposed Anti-Terrorism Bill, intended to replace the notorious Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA), carries forward many of the same structural flaws. While presented as a modern reform, the report finds that the Bill “reproduces the PTA’s core abuses – indefinite detention, vague definitions, and broad discretion vested in the executive.” The Bill defines terrorism so expansively that peaceful protests or digital campaigns “intended to influence the government” could fall within its scope.

The report’s case studies such as Wasantha Mudalige’s 2022 arrest under the PTA and the detention of poet Ahnaf Jazeem illustrate how counterterrorism laws have been used to “criminalize thought and artistic imagination.” It warns that the new Bill, unless fundamentally revised, “will perpetuate the logic of fear that has governed civic life for four decades.”

Together, these two laws – one digital, one security-focused – reflect a singular logic: the extension of state discretion and the contraction of public space. The report concludes that the OSA and Anti-Terrorism Bill form a “dual mechanism of repression – one controlling the message, the other policing the messenger.”

Regulating speech in the name of order

The Contempt of Court, Tribunal or Institution Act (No. 8 of 2024) adds another dimension to the tightening legal web. The Act codifies contempt offences in the name of preserving judicial dignity but, as the report warns, it risks silencing “the democratic function of public scrutiny.” Expressions that “scandalize the court” or “excite dissatisfaction” with the judiciary are now punishable and while the law gestures toward protecting “good faith” criticism, it leaves the courts themselves to decide what counts as “good faith.”

The report describes this as “a circular power that positions the judiciary as both subject and judge of criticism,” creating a potential conflict between accountability and authority. Sections 3(2)(c) and 3(2)(e), the report notes, “use undefined and subjective language that can penalize journalists, academics, or even litigants who question judicial conduct.”

The report highlights that this legal trend mirrors earlier colonial notions of contempt, preserving institutional prestige over public debate. It cites the case of the eight News 1st journalists assaulted in 2022, where the Supreme Court’s willingness to hear a fundamental rights petition stood as a rare affirmation of judicial openness. Yet under the new law, such criticism could be viewed as contempt. “The very judiciary that once defended free expression may now be armed to suppress it,” the report observes.

Equally alarming is the Broadcasting Authority Bill, still pending before parliament. The Bill establishes a licensing regime that gives politically appointed officials power to approve, suspend or revoke broadcasting licenses. The report warns that “such concentrated authority over airwaves, without independent oversight, risks converting media pluralism into a managed monopoly.” In a context where traditional media already faces economic coercion and advertising pressure, the Bill “could extinguish the last remnants of independent broadcasting.”

Even seemingly progressive laws contain contradictions. The Data Protection Act (2022), for example, promises privacy and individual security but as the report cautions, “its enforcement mechanisms, overseen by government-appointed officials, could legitimize surveillance rather than prevent it.” The draft Electronic Crimes Law similarly risks conflating cybercrime prevention with monitoring digital speech. The report urges lawmakers to “anchor such frameworks in rights-based principles, not policing instincts.”

The shrinking space for dissent

What emerges from this evolving legal landscape is a discernible pattern: broad powers, vague definitions and weak safeguards. The report describes this as the “institutionalization of uncertainty” – a condition where citizens self-censor not because they are silenced but because they fear they might be. “The chilling effect,” the report says, “is invisible but pervasive – felt in the hesitation of the writer, the silence of the activist, and the caution of the citizen.”

This atmosphere has intensified since the aragalaya of 2022 when spontaneous citizen protests reshaped political discourse. In its aftermath, the state responded not with dialogue but with legislation. The report documents the use of the Public Security Ordinance (PSO) to impose curfews, restrict assemblies and suspend media coverage, all in the name of “public order.” It notes that Sri Lanka’s emergency powers under the PSO remain among the most sweeping in Asia, allowing the president to override constitutional rights with minimal judicial scrutiny.

This report’s legal mapping also underscores how older laws such as the Penal Code provisions on sedition and religious insult and the ICCPR Act of 2007 are still routinely deployed against artists and comedians. The report’s detailed analysis of the Nathasha Edirisooriya case (2023) shows how her satirical performance was prosecuted under both the Penal Code and the ICCPR Act. The High Court, in granting bail, drew on the UN Rabat Plan of Action, emphasizing that “mere offence does not amount to incitement.” Yet as the report observes, “the fact that she was detained for 39 days before this principle was affirmed is proof of how fragile freedom remains.”

These legal and institutional trends reveal what the report calls “a culture of control masked as governance.” When laws define criticism as threat and dissent as danger, the result is not stability but the systematic erosion of democracy itself. “The suppression of speech,” it warns, “ultimately corrodes the very institutions it seeks to defend.”

Reclaiming the democratic space

The report’s concluding section, A Way Forward, calls for urgent legal reform anchored in transparency and accountability. It recommends:

• Repealing or amending repressive laws such as the PTA, the OSA and sections of the Penal Code and ICCPR Act inconsistent with the ICCPR’s Article 19.
• Embedding judicial oversight and public interest defenses to prevent abuse by state agencies.
• Ensuring the independence of regulatory bodies like the Online Safety Commission and Broadcasting Authority through transparent, non-political appointments.
• Protecting journalists and whistleblowers through dedicated legislation.
• Creating a Parliamentary Human Rights Oversight Committee to review enforcement practices and hold institutions accountable.

The report concludes that Sri Lanka’s future hinges on whether its leaders “choose the path of protection or persecution of speech.” It warns that without reform, “laws designed for safety and order will become instruments of silence.”

A decade defined by choice

As Sri Lanka stands at the intersection of political transition and digital transformation, the question is no longer whether freedom of expression is constitutionally guaranteed; it is whether it will survive the laws meant to regulate it. The CPA report offers a sobering reminder: “The erosion of speech does not begin with censorship – it begins with legislation.”

Freedom of expression in Sri Lanka has entered a new phase fought in the sanitized language of “security,” “morality” and “safety.” These terms may sound neutral, even necessary. But when the law confuses dissent with disorder, the result is not protection; it is paralysis. The next decade will determine whether Sri Lanka remains a democracy of voices or becomes a republic of whispers. The choice between the citizen’s voice and the state’s veto will decide not only the future of expression but the very soul of Sri Lanka’s democracy.

This article is based on the data and findings of the report titled “Challenging the Boundaries: The Impact of Current and Proposed Laws on Freedom of Expression in Sri Lanka (2025)” and serves as the first in a series of articles written on the basis of this report.