US human rights report says Sri Lanka military and police harass civilians with impunity

Acting US Secretary of State John J. Sullivan 

Washington, DC: The US State Department’s human rights report for 2017 said Sri Lanka’s military and police harassed civilians with impunity although civilian authorities generally maintained control over the security forces.

The US State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor published its Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2017 and Acting US Secretary of State John J. Sullivan on Friday released the report to the public.

The report said that according to civil society, military intelligence operatives conducted domestic surveillance operations and harassed or intimidated members of civil society in conjunction with, or independent of, police.

“Impunity for conflict-era abuses also persisted, including military, paramilitary, police, and other security-sector officials implicated in cases involving the alleged targeted killing of parliamentarians, abductions, and suspected killings of journalists and private citizens,” it said.

According to the report, civil society organisations asserted the Government and the courts are largely reluctant to take action against security forces, although this situation improved compared with 2016.

The Government, however, took steps to investigate, prosecute, and punish some officials who committed human rights abuses, it said.

Prosecutions for abuses committed by the security forces and police are rare but increasing, as are prosecutions for government corruption and malfeasance. The police said authorities prosecuted 26 officers for criminal offenses during the year.

The Government also implemented human rights training in the defence academy to increase respect for human rights and sponsored in-house training by the ICRC.

The full report on Sri Lanka is available at the US State Department website: https://www.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/humanrightsreport/index.htm?year=2017&dlid=277293#wrapper.

OPG’s SL Mid-Term Report now open for public comment

The Open Government Partnership (OPG) has called for public comments on the Independent Reporting Mechanism’s Year 1 Report for Sri Lanka’s first action plan.

In 2018, the Independent Reporting Mechanism (IRM) published the Year 1 report for Sri Lanka’s action plan. The report covers the first year of action plan implementation: July 2016 through June 2017.

The summary of the findings from the report is: “Sri Lanka’s first national action plan addressed a broad range of issues, from health to corruption to the right to information. While the government passed legislation on the right to information, most commitments saw little to no progress. Moving forward, the Government may need to focus on meaningfully convening key stakeholders during implementation of the action plan. This, in turn, may help to ensure that more commitments are implemented through to completion.”

The report is available online via https://www.opengovpartnership.org/sites/default/files/Sri-Lanka_Mid-Term_Report_2016-2018_for-pub-comment.pdf

The Tamil and Sinhala versions of the report will be available shortly. 

The Open Government Partnership is a multilateral initiative that aims to secure concrete commitments from governments to promote transparency, empower citizens, fight corruption, and harness new technologies to strengthen governance. In the spirit of multi-stakeholder collaboration, OGP is overseen by a Steering Committee including representatives of governments and civil society organisations.