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Sri Lanka has failed to redress human rights violations: rights group

By Bernard Hibbitts (editor) and University of Pittsburgh School of Law students.

[JURIST] The government of Sri Lanka has failed for the past two decades to redress alleged human-rights violations such as torture, enforced disappearances, and extrajudicial killings, according to an Amnesty International (AI) report published Thursday. As early as 1991, the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances had received more than 15,000 reports of enforced disappearances, according to AI's report, which also says the Sri Lankan government has not seriously tried to address alleged human rights abuses. AI called for the establishment of an international commission to investigate allegations of international human rights law abuses made against the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). AI also urged the UN to use the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to investigate reported violations. Last week, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon asked Sri Lanka's government to conduct a "proper investigation" of any "credible allegations of violations of humanitarian law" arising from the recent conflict between the government and the LTTE that ended last month with the military collapse of the Tigers and the killing of its leaders. Last month, the Council of the European Union called for an independent inquiry into possible war crimes committed during fighting between the Sri Lankan government and LTTE. In March, the Sri Lankan government denied allegations by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay that 2,800 civilian deaths caused by recent military action against the LTTE may constitute war crimes.

Full post as published by JURIST - The Paper Chase on June 12, 2009 (boomark / email).