The International Coalition Against Enforced Disappearance (ICAED) supports the call for the Human Rights Council to conduct an international investigation to look into the worsening human rights situation in Sri Lanka.
ICAED members now meeting in Geneva express deep concern over the Sri Lankan government’s brazen attacks against human rights defenders and falsely maligning their work by linking them to the supposed revival of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Morever, the ICAED is also concerned of the on-going cases of enforced disappearances in the country and the still unresolved cases that happened at different period of the country’s history.
From the 14th to 16th of March 2014, three human rights defenders were arrested in the north of Sri Lanka and detained by the government on false charges under the repressive anti-terrorism law. On 14th of March, Balendran Jeyakumari, active campaigner against enforced disappearances and her 13 year- old daughter were the first to be arrested in the northern district of Kilinochi. Two days later, on the 17th of March, prominent human rights defenders Ruki Fernando and Rev. Praveen Mahesan, a Roman Catholic priest who were in the area to attend to the case of Jeyakumari were themselves arrested. The two were released two days later due to mounting pressures from international human rights organizations and foreign governments but Jeyakumari remains in detention.
An international investigation is urgent because enforced disappearance and attacks against human rights defenders and innocent civilians have been continuing, despite the government’s promise to UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, during her country visit in August of 2013, to improve its human rights record. Though it has convened a Commission on Inquiry into enforced disappearances, families who have volunteered to cooperate face threats and there had been reports of disappearances of witnesses. Further, during the visit of British Prime Minister David Cameron to the Northern Province in November 2013, relatives of the disappeared who wanted to meet him were “violently blocked from meeting him”[1]. Also, during the International Day of Human Rights, 100 family members of the disappeared who were doing a peaceful rally at the Trincomalee Bus Station were attacked by 30 masked men, injuring the convener of the Committee for the Investigation of Disappearances, Sundaram Mahendran.
The litany of violations is long and seems unending. The international community must speak up now and exert pressure on the Sri Lankan government so that lives of human rights defenders, ordinary civilians and their families are protected. In cases of arrests of women and children, special intervention must be done to ensure that they are protected from sexual assaults. They have to be separated from the male detainees and attended to only by female members of the security forces.
Lastly, ICAED also calls on the Sri Lankan government to immediately release Jeyakumari and many other nameless and innocent family members of disappeared victims who remain in detention. They have suffered so much from the disappearance of their loved ones. They only want truth and justice. Persecuting them for their crusade against enforced disappearances is unacceptable.
The enforced disappearances in the country are a vicious cycle, with no resolution of past cases and new cases occur unabated. We urge the Government of Sri Lanka to once and for all sign without delay the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance and to recognize the competence of the Committee on Enforced Disappearances.