{"id":177950,"date":"2017-05-26T22:04:31","date_gmt":"2017-05-26T16:34:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=177950"},"modified":"2017-06-03T02:54:39","modified_gmt":"2017-06-02T21:24:39","slug":"pcs-celebrate-in-five-star-hotels-while-close-to-200-flood-victims-die-or-are-missing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/pcs-celebrate-in-five-star-hotels-while-close-to-200-flood-victims-die-or-are-missing\/","title":{"rendered":"PCs Celebrate In Five\u2013Star Hotels While Close To 200 Flood Victims Die Or Are Missing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>While at least 91 persons have died, a further reported 110 have been reported missing and thousands have been rendered homeless to date due to severe floods and mudslides due to inclement weather which has swept through Sri Lanka during the past days, several President&#8217;s Counsel newly appointed by President Maithripala Sirisena celebrated in style on Friday night (26th) wining and dining at Colombo\u2019s swanky five star hotels.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_142696\" style=\"width: 160px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/Weliamuna.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-142696\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-142696\" src=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/Weliamuna-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/Weliamuna-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/Weliamuna-50x50.jpg 50w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-142696\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">J. C. Weliamuna PC<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Among those who lavishly celebrated was anti-corruption activist <a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?s=JC+Weliamuna\">JC Weliamuna<\/a> who held his event at the Cinnamon Grand, Colombo.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, senior trade union activists who had been invited by Transparency International, Sri Lanka (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?s=TISL\">TISL<\/a>) to take part in a conference on Right to Information (RTI) on Saturday 27th May declined the invite on grounds of conscience, saying that they could not participate in a discussion on RTI held by an organisation whose functioning was contradictory to the basic principles of RTI.<\/p>\n<p>They pointed out that RTI requests to TISL filed by several senior trade union activists in regard to providing documents indicating serious internal financial and management irregularities in the organisation had been declined on non-justifiable grounds by TISL Executive Director Asoka Obeyesekere.<\/p>\n<p>The documents asked for included information relevant to the discontinuing of senior TISL staff who had been whistleblowers on fraudulent acts committed by TISL. The staff members were not given the report of an inquiry carried out by (then) Chairman of TISL Lakshan Dias and (then) Director, JC Weliamuna into the relevant incidents even though they and other members of TISL who stood up against the injustice committed, repeatedly asked for the document.<\/p>\n<p>Dias and Weliamuna <a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/dias-and-weliamuna-step-down-from-tisl-following-rti-requests\/\">stepped down<\/a> from their positions at TISL following the filing of the RTI requests. However, Weliamuna continues to be a key influence in directing the policy of the organization as a member of TISL.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Related posts:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"entry-title eltd-post-title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/dias-and-weliamuna-step-down-from-tisl-following-rti-requests\/\"><strong>Dias And Weliamuna Step Down From TISL Following RTI Requests<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p> [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":177953,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,2186,1,6969,2375],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-177950","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-colombotelegraph","category-featured-news","category-news","category-popular-stories","category-stories"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>PCs Celebrate In Five\u2013Star Hotels While Close To 200 Flood Victims Die Or Are Missing - Colombo Telegraph<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/pcs-celebrate-in-five-star-hotels-while-close-to-200-flood-victims-die-or-are-missing\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"PCs Celebrate In Five\u2013Star Hotels While Close To 200 Flood Victims Die Or Are Missing - Colombo Telegraph\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"[&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/pcs-celebrate-in-five-star-hotels-while-close-to-200-flood-victims-die-or-are-missing\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Colombo Telegraph\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2017-05-26T16:34:31+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2017-06-02T21:24:39+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Lawyers-.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"640\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"426\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"COLOMBO TELEGRAPH\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"COLOMBO TELEGRAPH\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/pcs-celebrate-in-five-star-hotels-while-close-to-200-flood-victims-die-or-are-missing\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/pcs-celebrate-in-five-star-hotels-while-close-to-200-flood-victims-die-or-are-missing\/\",\"name\":\"PCs Celebrate In Five\u2013Star Hotels While Close To 200 Flood Victims Die Or Are Missing - Colombo Telegraph\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/pcs-celebrate-in-five-star-hotels-while-close-to-200-flood-victims-die-or-are-missing\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/pcs-celebrate-in-five-star-hotels-while-close-to-200-flood-victims-die-or-are-missing\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Lawyers-.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2017-05-26T16:34:31+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2017-06-02T21:24:39+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/#\/schema\/person\/9db3d0cfcfa59e1997e3c3524d454cb3\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/pcs-celebrate-in-five-star-hotels-while-close-to-200-flood-victims-die-or-are-missing\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/pcs-celebrate-in-five-star-hotels-while-close-to-200-flood-victims-die-or-are-missing\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/pcs-celebrate-in-five-star-hotels-while-close-to-200-flood-victims-die-or-are-missing\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Lawyers-.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Lawyers-.jpg\",\"width\":640,\"height\":426},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/pcs-celebrate-in-five-star-hotels-while-close-to-200-flood-victims-die-or-are-missing\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"PCs Celebrate In Five\u2013Star Hotels While Close To 200 Flood Victims Die Or Are Missing\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/\",\"name\":\"Colombo Telegraph\",\"description\":\"In journalism truth is a process\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/#\/schema\/person\/9db3d0cfcfa59e1997e3c3524d454cb3\",\"name\":\"COLOMBO TELEGRAPH\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/920b3181b0bf86b5c339ad9f0963a89f6a8b19c4b971e629987a021ba7a663df?s=96&d=identicon&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/920b3181b0bf86b5c339ad9f0963a89f6a8b19c4b971e629987a021ba7a663df?s=96&d=identicon&r=g\",\"caption\":\"COLOMBO TELEGRAPH\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/author\/colombo_telegraph\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"PCs Celebrate In Five\u2013Star Hotels While Close To 200 Flood Victims Die Or Are Missing - Colombo Telegraph","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/pcs-celebrate-in-five-star-hotels-while-close-to-200-flood-victims-die-or-are-missing\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"PCs Celebrate In Five\u2013Star Hotels While Close To 200 Flood Victims Die Or Are Missing - Colombo Telegraph","og_description":"[&hellip;]","og_url":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/pcs-celebrate-in-five-star-hotels-while-close-to-200-flood-victims-die-or-are-missing\/","og_site_name":"Colombo Telegraph","article_published_time":"2017-05-26T16:34:31+00:00","article_modified_time":"2017-06-02T21:24:39+00:00","og_image":[{"width":640,"height":426,"url":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Lawyers-.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"COLOMBO TELEGRAPH","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"COLOMBO TELEGRAPH","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/pcs-celebrate-in-five-star-hotels-while-close-to-200-flood-victims-die-or-are-missing\/","url":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/pcs-celebrate-in-five-star-hotels-while-close-to-200-flood-victims-die-or-are-missing\/","name":"PCs Celebrate In Five\u2013Star Hotels While Close To 200 Flood Victims Die Or Are Missing - Colombo Telegraph","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/pcs-celebrate-in-five-star-hotels-while-close-to-200-flood-victims-die-or-are-missing\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/pcs-celebrate-in-five-star-hotels-while-close-to-200-flood-victims-die-or-are-missing\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Lawyers-.jpg","datePublished":"2017-05-26T16:34:31+00:00","dateModified":"2017-06-02T21:24:39+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/#\/schema\/person\/9db3d0cfcfa59e1997e3c3524d454cb3"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/pcs-celebrate-in-five-star-hotels-while-close-to-200-flood-victims-die-or-are-missing\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/pcs-celebrate-in-five-star-hotels-while-close-to-200-flood-victims-die-or-are-missing\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/pcs-celebrate-in-five-star-hotels-while-close-to-200-flood-victims-die-or-are-missing\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Lawyers-.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Lawyers-.jpg","width":640,"height":426},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/pcs-celebrate-in-five-star-hotels-while-close-to-200-flood-victims-die-or-are-missing\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"PCs Celebrate In Five\u2013Star Hotels While Close To 200 Flood Victims Die Or Are Missing"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/","name":"Colombo Telegraph","description":"In journalism truth is a process","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/#\/schema\/person\/9db3d0cfcfa59e1997e3c3524d454cb3","name":"COLOMBO TELEGRAPH","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/920b3181b0bf86b5c339ad9f0963a89f6a8b19c4b971e629987a021ba7a663df?s=96&d=identicon&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/920b3181b0bf86b5c339ad9f0963a89f6a8b19c4b971e629987a021ba7a663df?s=96&d=identicon&r=g","caption":"COLOMBO TELEGRAPH"},"url":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/author\/colombo_telegraph\/"}]}},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Lawyers-.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177950","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177950"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177950\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":178260,"href":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177950\/revisions\/178260"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/177953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}