The UK's Foreign and Commonwealth Office's (FCO) latest 'Country of Concern' report on Sri Lanka said that there was "no overall improvement in the human rights situation" during the end of last year and "concerns continued around the situation in northern Sri Lanka".
The updated report, which examined the period of September to December 2014, covering issues such as investigations into abuses during the conflict, counter-terrorism measures, unlawful use of force, torture, enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings, arbitrary arrests, and persecution of journalists and human rights defenders, highlighted the ongoing detention of prominent human rights campaigners, including Balendran Jeyakumari.
See here for full update. Extracts reproduced below:
The updated report, which examined the period of September to December 2014, covering issues such as investigations into abuses during the conflict, counter-terrorism measures, unlawful use of force, torture, enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings, arbitrary arrests, and persecution of journalists and human rights defenders, highlighted the ongoing detention of prominent human rights campaigners, including Balendran Jeyakumari.
See here for full update. Extracts reproduced below:
Concerns continued around the situation in northern Sri Lanka. Vavuniya (Northern Province) Citizens’ Committee chairman, G. Thavaraja, was assaulted and attacked with iron rods in October. Thavaraja, who was in the forefront of a campaign calling for the release of Balendran Jeyakumari (a human rights defender who has been detained for over 200 days without charges), was allegedly threatened with death if he continued his campaign. Newspapers and journalists in the north continued to face issues. In October, a senior journalist and media activist was allegedly interrogated by law enforcement officials on his journalism training and interactions with international media watchdogs. A number of newspaper agents in Jaffna and Kilinochchi have alleged harassment. Throughout the third week of October, a Tamil monthly newspaper faced harassment, and a distributor of the paper was attacked at Uruththirapuram, Kilinochchi, with his newspapers dumped in a nearby reservoir by an armed gang. Meanwhile the Ministry of Defence (MoD) announced on 10 October that all foreign passport holders travelling to the north would require prior permission to do so. Conditions were subsequently relaxed enabling foreign passport holders of Sri Lankan origin to travel without prior permission. Two Tamil women from the north and east who were previously detained (relatives of terrorism suspects) were prevented from leaving Sri Lanka by law enforcement officials.
In a statement, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, criticised continuing attacks by the Sri Lankan government on the integrity of the UN Human Rights Office’s ongoing investigation into alleged violations and abuses of human rights by both sides during Sri Lanka’s conflict, and condemned the intimidation of human rights defenders and individuals who may wish to cooperate with the investigation. On 27 October, a Tamil man was arrested by members of the Terrorism Investigation Department (TID) in Kilinochchi on allegations of attempting to provide fabricated evidence to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights investigation on Sri Lanka. Several human rights defenders were labelled as Tamil Tiger supporters by a pro-government Sinhala language newspaper.