UN report details dire human rights situation in Sri Lanka

The Sri Lankan government is trying to convince international partners of its successes in economic reforms and the protection of human rights.

However, a new report from the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights warns that Sri Lanka is facing renewed threats to fundamental freedoms. The report finds that authorities have pursued new repressive laws and engaged in intimidation and violence against victims of past abuses. civil society activists, journalists and critics of the government.

The government denies responsibility for serious abuses during Sri Lanka’s 1983-2006 civil war. “This persistent impunity has also manifested itself in the corruption, abuse of power and governance failures that have been among the root causes of the country’s recent economic crisis,” the report said.

The economic crisis, which escalated in 2022, has doubled the poverty rate. The UN estimates that a quarter of households are food insecure, but “democratic reforms and accountability for corruption and economic mismanagement remain largely unfulfilled.”

The report found that “abuses by police and security forces remain widespread.” Between January 2023 and March 2024, the Sri Lanka Human Rights Commission recorded 21 alleged extrajudicial killings, 26 deaths in custody, and 1,342 arbitrary arrests and detentions. The UN investigated recent allegations of “abduction, arbitrary detention, torture, ill-treatment and sexual violence committed against persons of Tamil ethnicity by Sri Lankan security forces.”

Since ending a moratorium on the abusive Prevention of Terrorism Act in 2022, the government has used the law dozens of times against perceived critics, particularly Tamils. The families of victims of forced disappearance face reprisals for engaging with the UN or foreign diplomats. Authorities have detained 121,957 people in a brutal anti-drug campaign and sent thousands to military-run “rehabilitation centers.”

Meanwhile, new laws have “profound implications for … fundamental freedoms and the rule of law,” the report said. The Online Safety Act includes powers to restrict freedom of expression, and proposed legislation restricting non-governmental organizations would severely hurt groups already suffering from “surveillance, intimidation and harassment.”

The High Commissioner calls on members of the UN Human Rights Council to extend the UN mandates for monitoring and evidence gathering and to “help the international community… break the cycle of systematic impunity… (by) using all possible forms of jurisdiction.” Human Rights Watch echoes this call and urges UN member states to ensure that the Human Rights Council adopts a resolution to extend these mandates at its upcoming session in September.