News: Amnesty International

The Sri Lankan government failed to effectively address impunity for past human rights violations, and continued to subject people to enforced disappearances and torture and other ill-treatment. The authorities imposed severe restrictions on freedom of expression, assembly and association. Thousands of Tamil people suspected of ties with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) remained detained without charge. Both sides in the conflict that ended in May 2009 have been accused of war crimes; Amnesty International called for an independent international investigation.

In this written statement to the sixteenth session of the Human Rights Council Amnesty International expresses its concern that Sri Lanka’s human rights record has not improved since the organization last addressed this Council in May 2010. Impunity persists for past violations and abuses of international human rights and humanitarian law, and new and serious violations of human rights continue to be reported.

Human rights defender Pattani Razeek has been missing since he was apparently abducted on 11 February in the town of Polonnaruwa, in Sri Lanka's North Central Province. He may be the victim of an enforced disappearance, and could be at risk of torture or other ill-treatment. It is not clear what the authorities are doing to investigate his case.