COI Report March 2012 - UK Border Agency - Home Office

7 MARCH 2012 SRI LANKA
―According to Amnesty International, on March 26 [2010], more than 300 persons, most
of them Tamil, were arrested in a search operation conducted between 6 p.m. and 6
a.m. in the town of Gampaha 24 kilometers (15 miles) northwest of Colombo.
―Some arrests appeared arbitrary. In September several university students were
detained for hooting at the Minister of Education during a public event. These arrests
contributed to a wave of student protests in September and October, resulting in
additional arrests and detentions of students. By year's [2010] end 76 university
students were banned from attending lectures because of participation in protests and
related incidents. The government blamed the protests and incidents on left-wing
opposition parties.‖
8.20 The USSD 2010 139 report further noted that:
―Numerous NGOs and individuals complained that the armed forces and their
paramilitary allies arrested suspected LTTE sympathizers and did not surrender them to
the police, blurring the line between arrests and abductions. Credible reports alleged
that security forces and paramilitaries often tortured and killed those arrested rather
than follow legal safeguards, although this appeared to diminish after the end of the
war.‖
8.21 On 26 August 2011 the website Sri Lanka Brief 140 reported:
―Around 100 young men from Navanthurai, a village in the Jaffna District, were detained
in an operation conducted by the Sri Lanka Army around 1.15am on 23rd August 2011.
The villagers were severely beaten by the army and dragged to the main road near the
Navanthurai Army Detachment located around 300 meters from the village.
―The men were loaded onto buses and handed over to the Jaffna police around 4 am
and taken to the Jaffna courts by 10 am and produced before the Jaffna District Judge
at around 1 pm the same day (23rd August).
―Despite their injuries, the men were held without treatment for over 8 hours. 20 of the
most seriously injured were admitted to the Jaffna General Hospital after 10 am, on
orders by the District Judge. The rest were denied treatment until around 7.30 pm when
we received information that all detainees had been admitted for treatment to the Jaffna
Hospital.‖
―Lawyers for the villagers submitted that the villagers had chased the grease men from
their village who had entered the Army camp. The people grew agitated by the Army
refusing to produce the men and this was the reason for the confrontation between the
military and the villagers. In response, the military had entered the village early morning
on 23rd August and mercilessly beaten the villagers.‖
8.22 The HRW World Report 2012, Sri Lanka 141 , released on 24 January 2012, observed
that: ―Despite the end of the formal state of emergency, the government also continues
139 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 1d
140 Sri Lanka Brief, Jaffna: brutal assault of civilians in Navanthurai, 26 August 2011
http://www.srilankabrief.org/2011/08/jaffna-brutal-assault-of-civilians-in.html#more date accessed 21
January 2012
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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