COI Report March 2012 - UK Border Agency - Home Office

7 MARCH 2012 SRI LANKA
―They disappeared while organising one such rally in Jaffna, a city central to the civil
war which ended in 2009.
―Supporters have maintained that they believe the security forces secretly abducted
them, not least because Jaffna is firmly controlled by the military and because the wife
of one of the victims says she later spotted their motorcycle inside a police compound.
―The army and police deny holding the men. A police spokesman told the BBC a special
investigation was under way.
―Since the two human rights workers disappeared there have been no more
demonstrations for the families of missing people.
―Activists say that during his own campaigns for missing people, Lalith Kumar Weeraraj
had visited several places of detention and found there two people who had gone
missing.‖
15.06 The Amnesty International Annual Report 2011, Sri Lanka 273 released on 13 May 2011
observed that ―The authorities continued to deny access to human rights organizations
and other independent observers to visit the country to conduct research.‖ and added
that: ―Human rights defenders continued to be arbitrarily arrested, abducted, attacked
and threatened.‖
15.07 The US State Department 2010 Human Rights Report: Sri Lanka (USSD 2010) 274 ,
released on 8 April 2011 noted that:
―A number of domestic and international human rights groups continued to investigate
and publish their findings on human rights cases, despite increasing government
restrictions and physical threats to their work. The government often criticized local
NGOs critical of government actions, failed to respond to requests for assistance, and
put pressure on those who sought such assistance.
―Although the ICRC did not have an overall operating mandate since July 2009, and the
government told ICRC in December to close its offices in Jaffna and Vavuniya, it was
able nonetheless to conduct a number of its functions including prison visits and other
monitoring.‖
15.08 Human Rights and Democracy: The 2010 Foreign & Commonwealth Office Report -
Section VII: Human Rights in Countries of Concern 275 , released on 31 March 2011
noted that:
―The operating environment for human rights defenders in Sri Lanka remained difficult
throughout 2010. Prominent human rights defenders faced public criticism from
273 Amnesty International, Annual Report 2011, Sri Lanka, released on 13 May 2011,
http://amnesty.org/en/region/sri-lanka/report-2011, date accessed 19 May 2011
274 US State Department 2010 Human Rights Report: Sri Lanka (USSD 2010), released on 8 April 2011,
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2010/sca/154486.htm , date accessed 11 May 2011, Section 5
275 Human Rights and Democracy: The 2010 Foreign & Commonwealth Office Report - Section VII:
Human Rights in Countries of Concern, released on 31 March 2011
http://centralcontent.fco.gov.uk/resources/en/pdf/human-rights-reports/accessible-hrd-report-2010 date
accessed 24 May 2011
The main text of this COI Report contains the most up to date publicly available information as at 3 February 2012.
Further brief information on recent events and reports has been provided in the Latest News section
to 2 March 2012.
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