Dec 21, 2021
As 2021 comes to an end, we have been looking back over some of the key developments in human rights, justice, and accountability in Sri Lanka over the last year. This has been an extremely challenging year in Sri Lanka, as an increasingly militarised, authoritarian,...
Dec 16, 2021
On 3 December 2021, the UN’s expert on Contemporary forms of Slavery, Special Rapporteur Tomoya Obokata, published the preliminary findings from his recent visit to Sri Lanka. Whilst he acknowledged some of the progress that Sri Lanka had made regarding contemporary...
Dec 10, 2021
Today, on International Human Rights Day, the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO), announced that Furqan Bangalzai, a former commander of a Pakistani terrorist organisation, would be designated for sanctions under the Global Human Rights Regime....
Dec 3, 2021
Police Scotland will not continue training the Sri Lankan police force, it was announced last week. Chief Constable Iain Livingstone confirmed during a meeting with the Scottish Police Authority on 24 November 2021 that no further deployments to Sri Lanka will be made...
Nov 23, 2021
On 2 June 2020, whilst the Sri Lankan parliament had been dissolved since March pending delayed elections, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa announced the formation of two new Presidential Taskforces. One of these Taskforces, ‘for Archaeological Heritage Management in the...
Nov 5, 2021
Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has been in Scotland this week to attend the UN’s COP26 Climate Change Conference. Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who served as Defence Secretary between 2005-2015, is accused of command responsibility for mass atrocity crimes that killed...
Oct 27, 2021
27th October is Day of Commemoration of Disappearances in Sri Lanka Sri Lankans have lived under the terrible shadow of enforced disappearances for decades: in the security forces’ campaign against the JVP leftists in the late 1980s and in the conflict between the...
Oct 22, 2021
On 22nd October 2020, the Sri Lankan Parliament passed the 20th Amendment to the Constitution with a two-thirds majority, despite opposition from a wide range of civil society groups and concerns raised by international NGOs and UN experts. One year on, we look at the...
Oct 18, 2021
Police Scotland’s training of Sri Lanka’s abusive police force is currently paused. Now we have an opportunity to cancel the training altogether. Our friends at Freedom From Torture are running a campaign asking Scottish supporters to write to their representative in...
Sep 29, 2021
We the undersigned human rights organizations strongly condemn the ongoing persecution and reprisals by Sri Lankan authorities against student leaders, labour union leaders, teachers, academics, and others involved in recent protests against education policies in...
