In an asylum appeal case last month, a UK judge deemed that the asylum seeker - a Tamil man who had taken part in numerous protests in the UK - was at risk on deportation purely due to his participation in anti-Sri Lankan government protests, and was granted asylum one this alone, not due to any association with the LTTE.

The First Tier Tribunal Judge Mailer in the Immigration and Asylum Chamber considered:

“The evidence relating to Sri Lanka is clear. Those who seek to appose the government by way of demonstrations, contending that the leaders should be implicated and charged for war crimes, would be treated harshly”.

“Having considered the background material produced as well as the evidence from the report of TAG, we find that the submissions relating to the potentially hostile treatment meted out by the Sri Lankan authorities in respect of a person perceived to have been involved in anti government protests in the diaspora, to be made out.”

See here for a report by Tamils Against Genocide (TAG) on the case. Extract reproduced below:

"The ruling is especially perspicacious in recognizing that risk is related not to facts alone but to perceptions. It was put to the appellant that his being part of protests did not amount to his being a member of the LTTE. The appellant concurred, “He said that it was not he who was saying that. The government might think that.” It is the question of perception that matters and that needs to be considered when assessing risk.
 
There are several sources for unearthing the Sri Lankan State perception with regards to protesters. In her evidence before the Tribunal, TAG Director, Janani Jananayagam enumerated many of these sources. She was quoted in the determination, speaking of a “history of hostility to and demonisation of diaspora organisations supporting a secession of the Tamil homelands in Sri Lanka” – indeed the GoSL attitude and actions today against those who call for accountability for crimes is not without precedent.

The US based advocacy group PEARL - People for Equality And Relief in Lanka - called on the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group (CMAG) to suspend Sri Lanka from the Councils of the Commonwealth in a statement released on Wednesday.

See here for full statement, extracts reproduced in full below:

A Tamil man from Australia who returned to Sri Lanka last month to visit a sick family member was raped and tortured by Sri Lanka’s security forces.

Speaking to Australia’s ABC, the man, only identified as Kumar, made shocking claims regarding the treatment he was subjected to on return.

See video of news report here.

Kumar was abducted by a white van, soon after his arrival and taken to a blood-stained room by army intelligence officers.

"I was naked and no place to sleep, except the floor like a dog. I felt like dying but I thought of my kids and family back here,

"They came back and again started hitting me with a log at my back and now I've got a spine problem as well,

"The two guys were drunk and they came to me and they just put their hand on my body and they just rubbed me and I had some sexual torture as well,” Kumar said.

Sri Lankan Police have rejected charges of torture raised in the US State Department’s 2012 Human Rights report, slamming the allegations as “baseless”.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) has repeated its calls for a change of venue for the upcoming Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) due to be held in Sri Lanka.

HRW Asia director, Brad Adams said:

“The Commonwealth will rightly face international ridicule if it goes ahead with its summit in Sri Lanka,”

The Law Society of South Africa (LSSA), called for the suspension of Sri Lanka from the Commonwealth, citing Sri Lanka's "breaches of the rule of law and of the independence of the judiciary, as well as the gross harassment of members of the legal profession."

The UK Bar Council, a representation of barristers across England and Wales, condemned the impeachment of the Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake, in a statement released on Tuesday.

Maura McGowan QC, Chairman of the Bar, said:

The Sri Lankan President's son and MP, Namal Rajapaksa, shares his thoughts on the island's ethnic conflict:

@loveshan76 - In SL it was never Majority vs the Minority. It was always Terrorists vs Sri Lankan's

The Sri Lankan president, Mahinda Rajapaksa, distributed 3000 land deeds to Mahaweli farming families from the Mahaweli L zone, as part of a ceremony at Weli Oya on Saturday entitled - "Farmland Rights for You that Give Golden Harvest to the Nation".

A Russian woman who was the victim of a vicious rape attack led by a Sri Lankan politician in a holiday resort on the south of the island  on Christmas Day 2011, has vowed to carry on until justice has been served for the assault, which left her British boyfriend murdered.

In a report published in the Sunday Times, the victim, 24-year-old Victoria Tkacheva feared that the men responsible would never be held accountable, commenting,

“I know if Khuram was in my place he would go on to the end... That’s what I must do too”.

She went on to state that she was ready to give evidence at trial, but was doubtful of accountability, given that the suspects, including Sampath Chandra Pushpa Vidanapathirana, head of the local council in Tangalle and close associate of the ruling Rajapaksa family, were freed on bail and the politician reinstated to his post last year.

Tkacheva was distraught, adding,

” I was devastated when the men were freed on bail”.

She went on to recount the horrific attack, which saw her raped and left with a fractured skull and her boyfriend, Red Cross worker Khuram Shaikh shot dead.

Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse has said that the date for the Northern Provincial Council elections will be set in consultation with his astrologer, during a ceremony where he handed previously Tamil land over to Sinhalese settlers.

Writing for the Colombo Telegraph, Kumaravadivel Guruparan, a Tamil civil society activist, and attorney at law and lecturer at the University of Jaffna, outlined the facade of the proposed northern provincial elections and inadequacy of the 13th Amendment.

See here for original article, extracts reproduced below:

“Many ask as to whether the Tamil Civil Society’s position is pragmatic. As for our assessment of the 13th amendment – our assessment is one based on a realist analysis of the state of affairs. As to what we prescribe, if we are thinking of what is only possible, the options are very limited within the status quo. To be pragmatic should not be a call to learn to live with the oppression. To be pragmatic should not be a call to accept minimalistic solutions, which do us no good.”

“The Government has made the holding of the Northern Provincial Council elections a ‘high value commodity’ for the Tamils. By promising and breaching the promise and re-promising to hold it, the Government has made the Tamil community yearn for it. The strategy seems to be to get the Tamils to ask, demand, struggle, fight for something so minimalistic; to get them to feel and identify with the Provincial Council as an institution that will solve their problems. The political leadership of the Tamils – particularly the Tamil National Alliance has fallen for this trap. It has become very difficult to get the Tamil polity to debate and discuss about what contesting in these elections might mean for the Tamil struggle for self determination and meaningful self-government. Most Tamils want to vote, purely to show their displeasure with the Government. Many Tamils actually think, quite mistakenly, that an elected TNA Chief Minister will be able to reign in the unruly Governor of the Northern Province. The defeatist mentality stemming from Mullivaaykkal reigns supreme and many actors are making convenient use of this collective despair of the Tamil people.”