COI Report March 2012 - UK Border Agency - Home Office

7 MARCH 2012 SRI LANKA
article 19 of the Convention (UNCAT concluding observations 2011) for the Fortyseventh
session, 31 October – 25 November 201161, which considered the situation in
Sri Lanka:
―‗6. Notwithstanding the new circumstances prevailing since the defeat of the Liberation
Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the end of the military conflict that has consumed the
country for nearly 30 years, and the State party‘s public commitment to the Committee
that it has a zero-tolerance policy on torture as a matter of State policy and practice, the
Committee remains seriously concerned about the continued and consistent allegations
of widespread use of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of
suspects in police custody, especially to extract confessions or information to be used in
criminal proceedings. The Committee is further concerned at reports that suggest that
torture and ill-treatment perpetrated by state actors, both the military and the police,
have continued in many parts of the country after the conflict ended in May 2009 and is
still occurring in 2011 (arts. 2, 4, 11 and 15).‖ (Paragraph 3.13)
―‗18. The Committee remains concerned about the prevailing climate of impunity in the
State party and the apparent failure to investigate promptly and impartially wherever
there is reasonable ground to believe that an act of torture has been committed.‘‖
(Paragraph 3.07)
8.40 The UNCAT‘s Concluding Observations of 25 November 2011 should be directly
consulted in conjunction with the COI Bulletin of November 2011. The final version of
the UNCAT Concluding Observations was released on 8 December 2011 and is
accessible from here.
8.41 The Amnesty International Annual Report 2011, Sri Lanka 157 released on 13 May 2011
noted that ―Police and army personnel continued to torture or otherwise ill-treat
detainees. Victims included detained Tamils suspected of links to the LTTE and
individuals arrested for suspected ‗ordinary‘ criminal offences.‖
8.42 The USSD 2010 report 158 observed:
―The law makes torture a punishable offense and mandates a sentence of not less than
seven years' imprisonment; however, security forces tortured and abused citizens.
Human rights groups alleged that some security forces believed torture to be allowed
under specific circumstances. Following a 2007 visit, UN Special Rapporteur (UNSR) on
Torture Manfred Nowak concluded that ‗torture is widely practiced in Sri Lanka.‘ There
was no indication that such practices had subsided. No accurate, publicly released
statistics on reported torture cases were available.‖
8.43 The USSD 2010 report 159 went on to add:
―Civil society groups and former prisoners reported on several torture cases. For
example, former detainees of the Terrorist Investigation Division (TID) at Boosa Prison
157 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
158 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 1b
159 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 1b
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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