COI Report March 2012 - UK Border Agency - Home Office

7 MARCH 2012 SRI LANKA
government made limited progress towards naturalizing and providing citizenship
documentation to stateless persons. By December [2010] approximately 20,000 hillcountry
Tamils in the country lacked identity cards and citizenship documents,
compared with 30,000 at the beginning of 2009 and 70,000 in 2008. Those lacking
identity cards were at higher risk of arbitrary arrest and detention, but there were no
reports of such incidents during the year.
―The government passed laws in 2009 to grant citizenship to hill-country Tamils living
among other Sri Lankan ethnic Tamils in refugee camps in India's Tamil Nadu, but
progress on finding and registering these persons and granting them citizenship was
slow.‖
26.05 The UN Concluding observations of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural
Rights 545 ,dated 9 December 2010, expressed concern ―… that Citizenship Act No.18 of
1948 which deprived Tamils of Indian origin of citizenship has still not been abrogated
and that thousands of Tamils of Indian origin are still awaiting to be granted citizenship
on the basis of the 2003 Grant of Citizenship to Persons of Indian Origin Act, and as
stateless persons do not enjoy their economic, social and cultural rights.‖
See also Tamils of Indian origin (Up-country Tamils)
IDENTITY CARDS
26.06 The latest requirements for obtaining a national identity card (NIC), ‗Eligibility Criteria‘;
‗Necessary documents to be submitted to obtain an ID for the first time‘; ‗Obtaining
Duplicate Copy (for Lost Identity Cards)‘ and ‗Renewing the Identity Card‘ are available
from this weblink to the relevant section of the Sri Lanka Registration of Persons
Department 546 (accessed on 2 February 2012), which also noted that: ―A Sri Lankan
citizen is required to obtain an [sic] National Identity Card to authenticate his/her identity
as a citizen of Sri Lanka.‖
26.07 The website of the Registration of Persons Department 547 (accessed on 2 February
2012) also provides information on their One day services and Mobile services.
26.08 Human Rights and Security Issues concerning Tamils in Sri Lanka, Report from Danish
Immigration Service‘s fact-finding mission to Colombo, Sri Lanka 19 June to 3 July
2010 548 , dated October 2010 reported:
545 UN Concluding observations of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights , dated 9
December 2010 http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/cescr/docs/co/E.C.12.LKA.CO.2-4.doc date
accessed 25 May 2011, p4
546 Sri Lanka Registration of Persons Department, Obtainning NIC [sic], last updated 27 September 2011
http://www.rpd.gov.lk/web/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=18%3Aobtainningnic&catid=11%3Aobtaining-nic&Itemid=35&lang=en
date accessed 2 February 2012
547 Sri Lanka Registration of Persons Department, Obtainning NIC [sic], last updated 27 September 2011
http://www.rpd.gov.lk/web/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=18%3Aobtainningnic&catid=11%3Aobtaining-nic&Itemid=35&lang=en
date accessed 2 February 2012
548 Human Rights and Security Issues concerning Tamils in Sri Lanka, Report from Danish Immigration
Service’s fact-finding mission to Colombo, Sri Lanka 19 June to 3 July 2010, October 2010
http://www.nyidanmark.dk/NR/rdonlyres/899724D8-BEEB-4D9E-B3B2-
F2B28A505CCD/0/fact_finding_report_sri_lanka_2010.pdf date accessed 27 May 2011, p55
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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