Sri Lanka: Press Ahead on Rights Reforms

FEBRUARY 26, 2015

(New York) Sri Lankas new government should advance a reform agenda to address
past and ongoing human rights problems in the country, Human Rights Watch said
today in a letter to the newly elected president, Maithripala Sirisena. The government
has already undertaken important new initiatives, such as reviewing cases of detainees
under the Prevention of Terrorism Act, lifting restrictions on media reporting, ending
Internet censorship, and removing nongovernmental organizations from Defense
Ministry oversight.
However, many important human rights concerns still need to be addressed. Among
them are the use of torture by police, the protection of minority communities, the
independence of government oversight committees, and the repealing of the
Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA). Holding accountable those responsible on both
sides for violations of international law during Sri Lankas long civil war is crucial for
the countrys future, Human Rights Watch said.
President Sirisena has an important opportunity to right the wrongs of his
predecessor, said Brad Adams,Asia director at Human Rights Watch. The
governments strong initial steps should be followed by lasting measures to reestablish Sri Lanka as a rights-respecting democracy.
The Sri Lankan police routinely torture and ill-treat criminal suspects taken into
custody. The government should act to eliminate the use of torture against detainees

and improve redress mechanisms for victims.

During the Mahinda Rajapaksa government, Sri Lankas minority communities
increasingly came under threats and violence instigated by ultra-nationalist Buddhist
groups. While the new president in several speeches has acknowledged the
governments failure to act on behalf of these minority groups, more needs to be done
to alleviate their concerns. The government should fully investigate and appropriately
prosecute members of sectarian groups for inciting communal violence, as well as
police who failed to stop such crimes.
The number of people arbitrarily detained under the Prevention of Terrorism Act is
unknown, and many of their families are unaware of their fate or whereabouts. In
addition to releasing or charging those detained, the government should promptly act
to repeal the law, which has long underpinned widespread human rights violations,
particularly against ethnic Tamils.
On accountability for wartime abuses, the decision of the United Nations to postpone
the release of its investigation into violations of international law in Sri Lanka until
September 2015 provides the government an opportunity to put into place an effective
mechanism with a significant international component. Previous government
accountability mechanisms have been impaired by harassment, threats and violence
against witnesses and judges. The best way to address this problem would be to create
a combined international and domestic court similar to the successful hybrid courts in
Sierra Leone and Bosnia-Herzegovina, Human Rights Watch said.
Creating a predominant international presence in a special Sri Lankan court would
reduce the scope for interference against national judges and prosecutors, Adams
said. A strong hybrid court would lend credibility and independence to the
proceedings that purely domestic proceedings may lack.

Letter to President Sirisena Re. Human

Rights Situation in Sri Lanka
FEBRUARY 26, 2015
President Maithripala Sirisena
Presidential Secretariat
Galle Road
Colombo 3
Sri Lanka
Dear Mr. President,
Congratulations on your recent election success. Your coalition government now has an historic
opportunity and responsibility to address major human rights issues that have been ignored or
exacerbated by previous administrations. We look forward to your leading efforts to address
past and ongoing human rights violations in the country and re-establish Sri Lanka as a rightsrespecting democracy.
Human Rights Watch is an independent, nongovernmental organization that monitors human
rights developments in more than 90 countries around the world. For more than three decades
we have reported on violations of international human rights and humanitarian law by state and
non-state actors. Human Rights Watch relies on donations from individuals and foundations;
we do not accept funds from governmental sources.
Human Rights Watch has monitored human rights in Sri Lanka for more than 25 years. We
have documented a range of issues including child recruitment and other violations of the laws
of war by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the mistreatment of Sri Lankan
migrant workers in the Gulf, and torture and other conflict-related abuses by government
security forces. Throughout we have always worked closely with Sri Lankas community of
human rights advocates.
We welcome some initiatives your government has already undertaken, such as case-by-case
reviews of those detained under the Prevention of Terrorism Act, the lifting of restrictions on
media reporting, the end of Internet censorship, and the appointment of non-military personnel
as governors to the North and East provinces. Also important were the removal of
nongovernmental organizations from the oversight of the Ministry of Defence, and your pledge
to form commissions to return land in the former war zones to their rightful owners. We hope
your establishment of an inquiry into the 2012 deaths in Welikada prison is a shift away from
the previous governments unwillingness to tackle issues of accountability.
We look forward to having a constructive dialogue on human rights issues with your

government. We greatly appreciated meeting with Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera in

New York on February 13, 2015 and thank you for the invitation extended through Mr.
Samaraweera to visit Sri Lanka in the near future.
Below we outline some of the key human rights issues we would like your government to
address:
Police Torture and Ill-Treatment
Recent research undertaken by Human Rights Watch found that in areas we investigated, the
Sri Lankan police routinely commit torture and ill-treatment of individuals taken into custody.
Sometimes torture is carried out to extract confessions, but it is also used for personal
vendettas or to extort funds. The care that is sometimes taken to use methods designed to leave
no visible marks suggests a level of institutionalization.
While Sri Lanka has legislation prohibiting torture, in practice disciplinary or criminal
prosecutions against police officers and their superiors is rarely taken. In most cases of serious
abuse that Human Rights Watch examined where the perpetrators were identified, they remain
in active duty or merely are transferred to another police station. Only in a handful of
particularly egregious cases under the media spotlight was serious action taken against the
offending officers. Even in those cases, there is no history of punishing superior officers as a
matter of command responsibility.
Victims of torture and their families face a daunting path to redress and justice. For those of
limited means, particularly from rural communities, the various procedural steps that need to be
taken can be overwhelming. Many victims report being threatened by the local police against
taking any action. Even those who report being mistreated, either through a lawyer or the
National Human Rights Commission, have cited ongoing harassment by the police when back
in their villages.
Minority Rights
You have made important outreach to the countrys minority populations, including in your
February 4 Independence Day speech in which you acknowledged the failure of the
government to win the hearts and minds of all Sri Lankans, and in your February 17 speech
acknowledging the important role of the Hindu community in the country.
These are important gestures, but because of the toxic legacy of the past more needs to be done
to alleviate the concerns of Sri Lankas minority groups. In recent years ultra-nationalist
Buddhist groups, particularly the Bodhu Bala Sena (BBS), have incited hatred and violence
against minorities, particularly Muslims. In June 2014, protests led by BBS leader
Galagodaaththe Gnanasara Thera, purportedly to express concerns for the Buddhists in
Aluthgama, led to riots that left at least four Muslims dead, 80 injured, and numerous homes
and businesses in the town and surrounding areas destroyed.
To prevent such violence from escalating, the government should fully investigate and
appropriately prosecute members of groups such as the BBS for inciting and participating in
communal violence. Additionally, allegations of security force involvement in, or failure to stop
such violence needs to be thoroughly investigated, and disciplinary or prosecutorial action
taken.

Civil Society and the Media

One of the first announcements both by you and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe was to
assure civil society and the media that the reign of censorship, and threats and violence
imposed by the previous government was over. Furthermore, you pledged to dismantle the
surveillance apparatus that led critics of the government to fear that their phones were tapped
and their email was insecure. You also removed the Ministry of Defence from oversight of
nongovernmental organizations. These are very important steps that have brought a markedly
improved environment for the long-beleaguered members of civil society and the media.
We urge you to go further to ensure that the culture of repression is well and truly a thing of the
past by ordering investigations into who ordered the violations described above. Importantly,
your government should prioritize investigations into some of the egregious actions over the
last several years taken against civil society and the media. Some of these investigations could
include, but not be limited to:
Murder of Lasantha Wickramatunge in 2009
Enforced disappearance of Prageeth Ekneligoda in 2010
Arbitrary arrest, detention and ongoing travel restrictions on Ruki Fernando and Father
Praveen Mahesan in 2014
Finally, we encourage your government to include civil society in consultations on important
matters of public policy, such as ensuring accountability for past abuses and restoring the
political independence of oversight bodies.
Prevention of Terrorism Act and Politically Motivated Torture
Your government has pledged to evaluate all cases of detainees held under the Prevention of
Terrorism Act (PTA) and to either charge or release those held. As you know, the PTA has been
used to hold unknown numbers of suspected LTTE members and others without charge for
years. In spite of the previous governments promises to make the whereabouts of all detainees
known, many family members and lawyers continue to have no information about where, or
indeed if, their loved ones are detained. Prompt and thorough government action to resolve
these cases should be a government priority and we look forward to official progress reports as
the case evaluations proceed.
Human Rights Watch has long endorsed the position of the UN Working Group on Enforced or
Involuntary Disappearances since 1999 to abolish the PTA. The PTA allows for arrests for
unspecified unlawful activities without warrant and permits detention for up to 18 months
without producing the suspect before a court. The government need not charge the person with
an offense; many PTA detainees have been held for years without charge. And the act provides
immunity from prosecution for government officials who may commit wrongful acts, such as
torture, under the legislation.
The PTA has facilitated thousands of abuses over the years, including torture, enforced
disappearances, and extrajudicial executions. While problematic during Sri Lankas long civil
armed conflict, it is even more so since the conflicts end. Nonetheless it continues to be used
in an abusive manner.

Human Rights Watch research found that since the war the security forces have tortured
numerous people suspected of links to the LTTE, including forcibly returned asylum seekers.
[1] Many instances of torture, sexual violence, and other ill-treatment occurred in Criminal
Investigation Division and Terrorist Investigation Division offices in Colombo and elsewhere,
while others took place in unofficial places of detention. So long as unofficial places of
detention are in use, arrangements with the International Committee of the Red Cross and other
independent monitors will have limited impact.
The previous government took no serious action to address politically motivated torture and illtreatment. We urge you to investigate the continued use of torture, including against returned
asylum seekers, and fully prosecute those responsible. To prevent such practices in the future it
will be further necessary to shut down all unofficial places of detention.
Refugees
Since early 2014, the previous government increased the forcible return of individuals seeking
asylum in Sri Lanka, including some people registered with the United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Most of those forcibly returned were members of
religious minorities facing persecution back in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The previous
government denied UNHCR access to detained asylum seekers facing deportation, including
some recognized as refugees. Although Sri Lanka is not a party to the 1951 Refugee
Convention, as a matter of customary international law it is prohibited from returning a refugee
to a place where they face persecution.
Conflict-Related Accountability
As you know, the resistance of the Mahinda Rajapaksa government to deliver justice to victims
of Sri Lankas nearly three-decade long civil war led the UN Human Rights Council to call on
the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) to undertake a
comprehensive investigation into alleged violations by both sides of the laws of war. The
report of that investigation, initially due in March 2015, has been deferred unto September
based on specific undertakings by your government, including that of establishing a credible
accountability mechanism.
We urge you to extend all cooperation to the UN to address accountability, an issue that has farreaching effect on the human rights situation in Sri Lanka generally. In addition to the
invitation to visit Sri Lanka to High Commissioner Zeid Raad Al Hussein and to the Working
Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances, you should also invite the OHCHR team
that is preparing the Sri Lanka report to visit the country to conduct on-the-ground research.
The government should also extend invitations to all UN special mandate holders who have
sought access to Sri Lanka in recent years.
In terms of accountability itself, we remain concerned by references to a domestic
mechanism that suggests no more than an advisory role for international actors. Sri Lanka has
a long history, across several administrations, of establishing commissions of inquiry that have
not led to prosecutions for enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings, or other serious
crimes. Some commission reports have not even been made public. The most recent such
commission, the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC), made a number of
valuable recommendations over all, but largely absolved the government security forces of any

laws-of-war violations and produced no meaningful avenue for accountability, in spite of

credible independent evidence to the contrary. It is important to ensure that a special
commission report with paid foreign experts investigating enforced disappearances is released
as promised in August 2015.
Previous government investigations and commissions have been impaired by harassment,
threats, and violence against witnesses to serious crimes and their families. Human Rights
Watch remains deeply concerned that even an independent and impartial domestic
accountability mechanism will be subject to intimidation affecting not only witnesses, but
national judges and prosecutors. A predominant presence of international judges and
prosecutors would reduce the pressures easily brought to bear on national judges and
prosecutors, and lend a credibility and independence to the proceedings that purely national
proceedings lack. We strongly urge you to consider credible models of hybrid internationaldomestic courts, including the successful Special Court for Sierra Leone and the State Court of
Bosnia Herzegovina, which comprised a majority of international judges and prosecutors that
eventually transformed into a purely domestic court.[2]
We also urge your government to seek international expert advice on the establishment of a
national authority following the passage of the Victim and Witness Protection Bill. As your
government proceeds towards delivering justice, it is critical that the safety and well-being of
all victims and witnesses is given the highest priority.
Recommendations
In conclusion, to address the above issues, we urge you and your government take the
following measures:
Act to eliminate the use of torture and other ill-treatment by police against criminal
suspects. Improve redress mechanisms for victims of torture.
Investigate and appropriately prosecute those responsible for incitement of violence
against religious minority communities and law enforcement officials who fail to stop it.
Send an unequivocal message that communal violence will not be tolerated.
Investigate and appropriately prosecute those who have committed threats and attacks
against members of civil society and the media.
Repeal the Prevention of Terrorism Act. Ensure that those detained under the PTA are
promptly released unless charged with a credible offense. Take all necessary steps to end
the use of torture, including by eliminating all unofficial detention centers and
prosecuting those responsible.
Increase consultations with civil society organizations on a broad range of human rights
issues to consolidate and expand upon recent improvements.
Seek visits and assistance from United Nations technical and expert bodies to address
human rights concerns.
Make public past reports of Sri Lankas various commissions of inquiry; ensure the
August 2015 release of the pending Disappearances Commission report.
End the practice of returning refugees and asylum seekers to places where they have a
reasonable fear of persecution.
Establish a special hybrid international-domestic court to prosecute those on both sides

responsible for serious violations of international law.

Put in place a victim and witness protection program that complies with international
best practice.
Thank you for your consideration. We look forward to discussing these and other human rights
issues in greater detail with you and members of your government.
Sincerely,
Kenneth Roth
Executive Director
Human Rights Watch

[1] Human Rights Watch, Sri Lanka - We Will Teach You a Lesson, February 26, 2013,
http://www.hrw.org/reports/2013/02/26/we-will-teach-you-lesson.
[2] See generally, Human Rights Watch, Bringing Justice: The Special Court for Sierra Leone,
September 2004, http://www.hrw.org/reports/2004/09/07/bringing-justice-special-court-sierraleone; Human Rights Watch, Justice for Atrocity Crimes: Lessons of International Support for
Trials before the State Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, March 2012,
http://www.hrw.org/reports/2012/03/12/justice-atrocity-crimes-0.