COI Report March 2012 - UK Border Agency - Home Office

SRI LANKA 7 MARCH 2012
� ―Torture perpetrated by state actors within both the military and police has
continued in Sri Lanka after the conflict ended in May 2009 and is still occurring
in 2011;
� ―Those at particular risk of torture include Tamils who have an actual or
perceived association with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE);
� ―A variety of different types of torture have been perpetrated in a significant
number of locations around Sri Lanka during the post-conflict period; and
� ―Many Sri Lankan torture victims are left with visible, heavy scarring attributable
to both blunt force trauma and burns which suggests impunity for perpetrators of
torture in Sri Lanka.‖ (Paragraph 1.14)
8.36 The Freedom from Torture submission to the Committee against Torture for its
examination of Sri Lanka, November 2011 should be directly consulted in conjunction
with the COI Bulletin of November 2011.
8.37 Section 1 of the COI Bulletin of November 2011 154 also quoted the REDRESS, Asian
Legal Resource Centre & ACAT-France, alternative report of September 2011 which
observed that: ―Torture, in particular by the police, remains endemic in Sri Lanka. In
spite of the large number of credible allegations of torture and other forms of illtreatment,
there have been few prosecutions and even fewer convictions of the
torturers. This lamentable situation reflects serious shortcomings in investigation
methods and accountability mechanisms that result in an overall climate of impunity.‖
(Paragraph 1.14)
8.38 Section 2 of the COI Bulletin of November 2011 155 contains extensive quotes from the
Freedom from Torture, report Out of the Silence: New Evidence of Ongoing Torture in
Sri Lanka, released on 7 November 2011 which should be directly consulted in
conjunction with the COI Bulletin of November 2011. The FFT report contained, inter
alia, detailed information on the following: Profile of the torture survivors in the study;
Detention and Forensic evidence of torture.
8.39 Section 3 of the COI Bulletin of November 2011 156 is dedicated to UNCAT‘s (UN
Committee against Torture) Examination and Concluding Observations.
―On 25 November 2011, UNCAT released an ‗Advance Unedited Version‘, of their
Concluding observations on Consideration of reports submitted by States parties under
154 UK Border Agency, Country of Origin Information (COI) Bulletin: Recent reports on Torture and ill-
treatment, 30 November 2011
http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/sitecontent/documents/policyandlaw/coi/srilanka12/bulletin-
11111.pdf?view=Binary date accessed 13 January 2012
155 UK Border Agency, Country of Origin Information (COI) Bulletin: Recent reports on Torture and ill-
treatment, 30 November 2011
http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/sitecontent/documents/policyandlaw/coi/srilanka12/bulletin-
11111.pdf?view=Binary date accessed 13 January 2012
156 UK Border Agency, Country of Origin Information (COI) Bulletin: Recent reports on Torture and ill-
treatment, 30 November 2011
http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/sitecontent/documents/policyandlaw/coi/srilanka12/bulletin-
11111.pdf?view=Binary date accessed 13 January 2012
74 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.