AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL PUBLIC STATEMENT
AI index: ASA 37/009/2012
13 June 2012
A statement for the June Human Rights Council Session
Sri Lanka is not fulfilling many of its international human rights obligations. Impunity remains the norm for gross violations of human rights, including alleged war crimes. Gross and systematic human rights violations continue to take place. Sri Lanka’s armed conflict ended in 2009, but its legacy of unlawful detention practices continues; arbitrary arrest and detention, torture and other ill-treatment and custodial killings remain hallmarks of Sri Lankan policing.
The number of reports of enforced disappearances in the past six months is alarming; political activists critical of the state continue to be victims. Intimidation and smear campaigns against human rights defenders and journalists in government-owned newspapers have included attacks on individuals advocating for human rights accountability before this Council.
Sri Lankan authorities circumvent or ignore protections built into the ordinary criminal justice system. Sometimes they act outside the law, more often they invoke security legislation to arrest suspects without evidence or warrants and to hold them without charge for extended periods. On 30 August 2011, the government lifted the state of emergency that had been in place almost continuously since 1971. However, the repressive Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA), which permits extended administrative detention, was retained. The authorities also introduced new regulations under the PTA to continue detention of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) suspects without charge or trial. The PTA reverses the burden of proof where torture or other ill-treatment is alleged, and restricts freedom of expression and association.
