Sri Lanka’s police are increasingly killing and abusing people under cover of the Covid-19 pandemic measures and an anti-drug campaign, Human Rights Watch (HRW) alleged today (06).
HRW notes that recent police abuses reported in the media include alleged extrajudicial killings, torture, and arbitrary detention. In this backdrop, it urges for the government to restore independent oversight of the police and meaningfully investigate and prosecute alleged police abuses.
Until there is progress on accountability and reform, the HRW has also stated that international partners, such as the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and the United Kingdom’s Police Scotland, should suspend assistance programs.
“Sri Lanka’s police seem intent on building on their past record of serious abuses, instead of cleaning up their act,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The UN, UK, and others working with Sri Lankan law enforcement should recognize that without the political will to reform on Sri Lanka’s part, their engagement risks appearing to endorse abusive agencies.”
HRW highlighted that since May 2021, the police have been implicated in several unlawful deaths, including some linked to disproportionate and abusive enforcement of Covid-19 quarantines.
The UN high commissioner for human rights, Michelle Bachelet, in her report to the UN Human Rights Council in January, wrote that she was “concerned by a recent series of deaths in police custody and in the context of police encounters with alleged criminal gangs” amid a “militarized approach to law and order and drug control.” She highlighted five possible extrajudicial killings involving the Sri Lankan police between June and October 2020.
Further, it was expressed that the current police abuses come in a context of “shrinking civil and political space” under the Rajapaksa administration. The Bar Association of Sri Lanka has condemned the police’s use of the Covid-19 pandemic to curtail freedom of expression, including detaining peaceful protesters at a quarantine facility in July.
HRW has also urged for UN agencies to ensure that any engagement with Sri Lankan security forces complies with the “human rights due diligence policy on United Nations support to non-United Nations security forces” and the UN common position on drug policy.
“The Rajapaksa government needs to demonstrate that alleged police abuses will be properly investigated and prosecuted, and the law should promote accountability, not weaken it,” Ganguly said. “Until that happens, international partners should be under no illusions about human rights in Sri Lanka, and they should withhold assistance to abusive law enforcement agencies.