Sri Lanka experienced almost 30 years of civil war from 1983 to 2009. As a result, the country today has a repressed civic space where authorities are accused of stifling protest, harassing activists, and pushing for repressive laws.

Despite these challenges, Sri Lanka has human rights defenders such as lawyer Suren D. Perera who work towards justice for the victims of state violence.

Here Perera shares how growing up with a strong sense of justice led him to the work he currently does. In this essay, he also details the importance of self-care and the protection of one's mental well-being in the human rights advocacy space, and he goes on to share his experiences of putting his mental health first through his participation in the Oslo Breathing Space City programme. 

My name is Suren D. Perera and I am a human rights lawyer from Sri Lanka. I have as worked as a lawyer since 2012 focusing on victims of torture, sexual violence against women, cases under the terrorism act, and cases of people who have disappeared. I work with the Human Rights Office Kandy as Head of the Legal Unit, and I commute between Colombo (where I reside) and Kandy to work on these cases.

I also do work on finding justice for the victims of the Easter Sunday bombings of 2021 throughanother human rights organization called the Center for Society and Religion. In 2024 I started a private law firm working on human rights that is called Human Rights Law Chambers. Currently I work in all three organizations so I'm quite busy.

Part of how I ended up in human rights law is that I developed a strong sense of justice because of the books I read growing up, and it's also because some of my aunts and uncles were lawyers. That all made me want to work on social justice issues in my country.

When I was in law college I became aware of a lot of injustices. For example, the president’s son was also studying for the bar exam with us and he got special treatment. The Sri Lankan War ended in 2009, and in 2010 I did my bar exams. The president that was governing at the time became very powerful after ending the war, and so his son and the people close to him also became quite powerful in the country. We don’t know how his son came to the law college, but he got special treatment like not attending any classes and being able to do second and third year at the same time.

They even arranged a special day for him to get his degree. At the time I was the president of the student union so we were seeing these inequalities. Also, in Sri Lanka we have a kind of executive presidency system, which is very powerful. It is like a constitutional dictatorship. Even now there are a lot of problems such as violations of human rights. Torture is rampant, along with sexual violence and many other things. There are serious issues with the rule of law in the country, and there are many people who are above the law. I felt as though I should do something about this, so that we have a better system. So after I became a lawyer I wanted to do something about these inequalities.

However, choosing to do something about these inequalities is not easy as a lot of journalists, and sometimes human rights lawyers and human rights defenders were attacked, disappeared, and even killed. And if you have political power it is not that difficult for you to be sort of above the law. You can somewhat influence the police and certain other institutions, and you can get away with some things. Because of that impunity, you can commit crimes and you will not go to jail.

Part of the reason for this is that Sri Lanka was the perfect security state for a very long time. We had a more than 30-year-long civil war in the country, and because of the war our security laws are very powerful. During the war, around 1971, and again in 1988 and 1989, there were some leftist political parties revolts where they tried to take power. Many people died, and a lot of torture happened during that time.

A lot of disappearances also happened, and Sri Lanka is second in the world for disappearances. During the end of the war around 100,000 people disappeared. It is something similar to what's happening in Gaza right now. It's a kind of ethnic conflict that happened in Sri Lanka, with the Sri Lankan government against another group of people from a minority ethnic community that were labeled as terrorists in the last stages of war. This situation in the country is why there are a lot of cases of disappearances and torture of human rights lawyers, human rights defenders, and journalists.

While there are of course always the risks, a lawyer (still) has some recognition in Sri Lanka. By this I mean education has some great importance in this country, and a lawyer has some civil power as well. So even though Sri Lanka is a tough environment I have some space or capacity to work on human rights issues because I am a lawyer. It's not the same for a journalist, for instance.

However I do have some experience where I filed cases against police officers for torture and they tried various methods to get me to withdraw these cases. There is one instance where they went to my home, to my mother's house, and they were not directly threatening me, but they were looking for me and they wanted to talk to me. They wanted me to withdraw the case. There are instances where the director and some others in my organization were interrogated by the Terrorist Investigation Division.

Some of my colleagues have been arrested. However, as a lawyer I think I have some space to work. The things that I do have some power because I work with cases, and I work with the law. So no one can say that my work is illegal, if I don't do something illegal. But it also depends on the importance of the matter.

I also do more than just focus on the law, and I would say most of my work is victim-based. In Sri Lanka some tools work, and some tools don’t, and in law there are certain tools that we can use, but this also takes some time. There is a prolonged delay in court cases, so it is not an efficient system. That’s why at the Human Rights Office we have a holistic approach to these cases.

We give psycho-social assistance, financial assistance, security, and shelter. There are certain cases that I am working on that started in 2002, and after 22 years the cases (such as rape and torture cases) are still with this office. So we have a big group of victims who need more than legal support. This is also why I am working on other things in addition to the law, such as training in trauma counseling. I believe that aside from the legal case, the other areas of the victim's personal lives should continue — such as their marriage or their occupation.

Most people have to take attention away from these other areas, because they are focused on the legal case, but that doesn't work because we don't have a proper system (of support) here. That’s why at the Human Rights Office Kandy we have that system to assist by other means, or we direct victims to an organization that can help. But there are very few organizations that can manage that sort of a holistic approach.

In addition to the political concerns, this work has a significant impact on one's health. So that's why I recently participated in the Oslo Breathing Space City programme for three months and it was the best time. I travel back and forth from the capital city Colombo to another city (Kandy) three or four hours away. I do this once a week, stay for two days and I come back. As such I work in both these cities with two organizations.

Before the Breathing City programme I was feeling very burned out from this work in human rights defending and I was stressed. The programme was a great opportunity for me to have a break. What a wonderful time! I did activities such as power walking, cycling, hiking, island-hopping, yoga, sightseeing, networking, reading, and buying books.

I also celebrated international days (such as Labor Day, Constitutional Day, and Pride Month), attended digital security training, counseling sessions, an academic lecture on human rights at the University of Oslo, international conferences on human rights, cultural events, book launch ceremonies at book shops, summer festivals, seminars on human rights, attended various parties by the Norwegian Human Rights Fund (NHRF) and others, networking dinners, musical concerts, meetings with politicians — including a meeting with the Mayor — panel discussions as a panelist, and delivering presentations on human rights.

I explored libraries, bookshops, museums, farms, courts, parliaments, nearby countries (Sweden, Denmark, and Finland) and public transport including bicycles and ferries. It was altogether a life-changing experience. I was also able to relax and disconnect from my work at home because the NHRF funded lawyers to appear in my human rights cases in Sri Lanka. As I appear in these cases on behalf of Human Rights Kandy, NHRF provided that amount to them.

The psychosocial coaching during the programme was excellent. I never thought that I needed a counseling session and that I would be open to a counselor. However, I opened up to her about many things as I felt like those sessions were like just chatting with a friend. I was almost burned out just before I went for the programme. She taught me how to manage my stress and other negative feelings.

She also guided me on balancing my family life as I had very little time for my family earlier. For the first time in my life, I felt as though I had a team of people who cared about me and that was quite a different experience from what I am used to. I am always the person who leads others and takes care of others. But here I was given the necessary guidance and assistance with all my work. It was a strange feeling, but it is a feeling that every human rights defender must have at least once in their lifetime.

As Told to Gugulethu Mhlungu. This article has been lightly edited for clarity.

The 2024-2025 In My Own Words series was made possible thanks to funding from the Ford Foundation.