State Violence in Sri Lanka - World Organisation Against Torture

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State Violence in SRI LANKA
• Tying hands behind the back, tying the thumbs together, putting a string
through the thumbs and hanging the person from the ceiling from the
thumbs--this way a person can lose the use of arms temporarily or permanently;
• Tying the hands and legs and putting a pole though the legs in a way that
a person can be rolled around: While being rolled the person can be beaten
on the head and the soles. the police cynically call this method Dharma
Chakkra (literally meaning the wheel of the universal law especially in
Buddhism);
• Hanging up and beating. This can cause renal failure and other serious
injuries;
• Hitting on the genitals;
• Inserting genitals into drawers and closing them to cause pain;
• Pumping water through fire hose pipes on genitals;
• Inserting S-lon (PVC) pipes and other objects like glass bottles into the
vagina;
• Beating on the ear. A person could fully or partially lose hearing this way;
• Dragging on the ground;
• Forcing a person to crawl in public places;
• Hitting the soles of the feet with a pole;
• Forcing the fingers into glass bottles making it very difficult to remove
them;
• Threatening to kill;
• Threatening to rape;
• Threatening to plant drugs and press charges for possession of drugs. The
punishment for such cases is very high.
Judging from the documentation of torture cases filed and from the Supreme
Court judgments on non criminal torture cases, we note that these forms of
torture usually take place at police stations. Appendix 1 has some extracts
from medical examiners’ notes of torture victims at police stations.