Revealed: How Scottish Police Trained Sri Lankan Cops Linked To Human Rights Abuse
September 8, 2013
Scottish Police College overseeing police recruitment in Sri Lanka, a country that UN human rights chief warns “is heading in an increasingly authoritarian direction”, an investigation by Corporate Watch has found. UK aid money also paid for Sri Lanka’s top cop to train in Scotland before final war against Tamil Tigers.
The Scottish Police College is deeply involved in creating Sri Lanka’s new National Police Academy. All Sri Lankan police recruits will follow a “contemporary and dynamic curriculum” being designed with the Scottish Police College (SPC). In addition, “training for thousands of existing partly trained officers will be prioritised based on the newly developed curriculum”. Scottish officers will coach Sri Lankan police trainers, “to ensure they are capable of delivering each of the re-designed programmes”. The scheme started in November 2012, but its full extent has only just come to light through a Freedom of Information request to the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO), who handed over the project’s blueprint to Corporate Watch. The project is funded by Britain’s Conflict Prevention Pool, a ‘peace fund’ administered by three Whitehall bodies including the Department for International Development (DFID).
This revelation comes a week after the UN’s most senior human rights official, Navi Pillay, finished her inspection of Sri Lanka. Last weekend, Pillay said she was “deeply concerned” that Sri Lanka “is showing signs of heading in an increasingly authoritarian direction”, warning that “democracy has been undermined”. Pillay slammed the police for their “harassment and intimidation of a number of human rights defenders”, including priests and journalists, who were scheduled to meet the UN official. Human Rights Watch accuse Sri Lanka’s police of widespread rape in custody. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) have defended the project and denied it was developing a police state. An FCO spokesperson told Corporate Watch that “British Government-supported justice and security projects have safeguards in place that seek to ensure our work does not contribute to human rights abuses. On the contrary, our police training reform project in Sri Lanka, led by the Scottish Police College (SPC), aims to embed international standards in police training”. The SPC said its advice to the Sri Lankan police includes human rights and “public relations” training. Read More
September 8, 2013
Scottish Police College overseeing police recruitment in Sri Lanka, a country that UN human rights chief warns “is heading in an increasingly authoritarian direction”, an investigation by Corporate Watch has found. UK aid money also paid for Sri Lanka’s top cop to train in Scotland before final war against Tamil Tigers.
This revelation comes a week after the UN’s most senior human rights official, Navi Pillay, finished her inspection of Sri Lanka. Last weekend, Pillay said she was “deeply concerned” that Sri Lanka “is showing signs of heading in an increasingly authoritarian direction”, warning that “democracy has been undermined”. Pillay slammed the police for their “harassment and intimidation of a number of human rights defenders”, including priests and journalists, who were scheduled to meet the UN official. Human Rights Watch accuse Sri Lanka’s police of widespread rape in custody. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) have defended the project and denied it was developing a police state. An FCO spokesperson told Corporate Watch that “British Government-supported justice and security projects have safeguards in place that seek to ensure our work does not contribute to human rights abuses. On the contrary, our police training reform project in Sri Lanka, led by the Scottish Police College (SPC), aims to embed international standards in police training”. The SPC said its advice to the Sri Lankan police includes human rights and “public relations” training. Read More
The Info Navi Pillay Was Fed With
C.A.Chandraprema
One of the delegations of local NGOs that presented a memorandum to Navi Pillay during her visit, was the Alliance of Media Organisations made up of the Free Media Movement, the Sri Lanka Working Journalists Association, the Federation of Media Employees Trade Union, the Sri Lanka Tamil Media Alliance, the Sri Lanka Muslim Media Forum, the South Asian Free Media Association – Sri Lanka Chapter, and the Media Movement for Democracy. In this memorandum, reference was made to the attacks on the Sirasa TV station, the Sunday Leader Press, the Siyatha TV station, the killing of Lasantha Wickremetunga, and the assaults on Media persons like Poddala Jayantha, Namal Perera, and other such incidents which are well known and will not be disputed by anybody. However, the memorandum presented to Pillay by the alliance of media NGOs also had the following statements which struck this writer as needing further investigation viz:
“Since 1981, 114 persons have been killed due to the exercise of freedom of expression, including journalists and media workers.”
“34 Journalists have been documented as killed between 2005 till to date…”
“Over 50 journalists, including prominent and well known press freedom activists, have gone into exile since 2009.”
We as journalists know that D.Sivaram, Lasantha Wickremetunga and Sampath de Silva, a freelancer attached to the Lakbima, were killed between 2004 and now, but who were all the others mentioned by the media NGOs? Then we know that Uvindu Kurukulasuriya (Colombo Telegraph) , Sandaruwan Senadhira (Lanka e News) and media activist Sunanda Deshapriya have gone into self exile but who are all the others? The numbers mentioned are large – 114 killed since 1981, 34 since 2005 alone and no less than 50 in self exile! Last week, this writer phoned media activist Sunil Jayasekera of the FMM and asked for the lists of media personnel who had been killed and had gone into self exile. A book written by Seetha Ranjanee a media activist, about the 114 media persons killed since 1981 was given to me. Read More
