Ambika Satkunanathan, Former Commissioner at the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka, addressed the United States House of Representatives Tom Lantos Commission on Human Rights this week, as it held a hearing on 'Accountability and Human Rights in Sri Lanka'.

See the full text of her address and video footage of the event below.

Last month, Former Commissioner, Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka Ambika Satkunanathan addressed the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission at an event entitled "Counter-Terrorism and Human Rights: Striking the Right Balance".  

The Sri Lankan state portrays those arrested for allegedly committing terror offences, to date mainly Tamils, and after the Easter attacks also Muslims, as guilty from the point of arrest, writes Ambika Satkunananthan in GroundViews.

Lawyer, human rights advocate and former Commissioner of the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka, Ambika Satkunanathan, questioned the basis for the presidential pardon of Sunil Rathnayake and the legitimacy of the process, and used the case to underline the challenges Tamil families’ face in holding perpetrators accountable and obtain justice.