At the 60th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC), the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) will present its report on the human rights situation in Sri Lanka, and the Council will be asked to consider the renewal of the OHCHR mandates in the country. In 2021, HRC resolution 46/1 established two vital mandates:
To the OHCHR Sri Lanka Accountability Project (OSLAP) to collect, analyze and preserve evidence of “gross violations of human rights or serious violations of international humanitarian law in Sri Lanka, to advocate for victims and survivors, and to support relevant judicial and other proceedings, including in Member States, with competent jurisdiction.”
To the High Commissioner for Human Rights to monitor and report to the Council on human rights violations in Sri Lanka.
Human Rights Watch Briefing on the Human Rights Situation in Sri Lanka
Those mandates were renewed by the HRC in 2022 for two years, and in 2024 for one year.
To protect human rights in Sri Lanka, uphold the principle of accountability for the most serious international crimes and give victims’ families an avenue to justice in the absence of any credible domestic accountability process, the Human Rights Council at its 60th session should renew both mandates for two years.
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In the nearly one year since President Anura Kumara Dissanayake has been in office – despite pledges to uphold Sri Lanka’s human rights obligations – there has been little if any improvement in any of the key human rights issues that led to action by the Human Rights Council. Impunity for mass atrocities and grave rights violations remains absolute, while intimidation and surveillance of victims and activists in previously war-affected areas continues.
The Dissanayake government invited the High Commissioner to visit Sri Lanka in June, but during their meeting the President only spoke of “commitment to national unity and reconciliation as well as to overcoming the economic challenge Sri Lanka is faced with,” instead of publicly backing the efforts of the Human Rights Council to ensure accountability.
A Crisis of Impunity
Tens of thousands of people were killed during the civil war between the Sri Lankan government and the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), including an estimated 40,000 in the final months alone. Abuses by government forces included arbitrary arrests and detention, extrajudicial killings, rape and other sexual violence, enforced disappearance, torture and other ill-treatment, and indiscriminate attacks on civilians. The LTTE committed numerous atrocities, including suicide bombings and other indiscriminate killings of civilians, torture, the use of child soldiers, forced displacement of ethnic populations, targeted killings, and summary executions.
Since end of the war in 2009, the UN has played a vital role in advancing justice and accountability while seeking to end ongoing violations. The Secretary-General’s Panel of Experts report (2011) and OHCHR Investigation on Sri Lanka (OISL, 2015) documented extensive rights abuses and violations by both sides during the conflict, some of which they found may have amounted to war crimes and crimes against humanity. The OISL report found that:
“[t]he sheer number of allegations, their gravity, recurrence and the similarities in their modus operandi, as well as the consistent pattern of conduct they indicate, all point to system crimes… these findings demonstrate that there are reasonable grounds to believe that gross violations of international human rights law, serious violations of international humanitarian law and international crimes were committed by all parties during the period under review. Indeed, if established before a court of law, many of the allegations may… amount to war crimes… and/or crimes against humanity.”
Successive Sri Lankan governments have appointed at least 10 commissions since the 1990s to examine human rights violations and war crimes, but none led to accountability or revealed the fate of thousands of victims of enforced disappearance. Instead, successive governments have blocked the few criminal investigations that had made some progress. During his June visit, High Commissioner Volker Türk warned of the “impunity trap,” and that “an absence of justice will undermine the stability of peace.” At the end of his visit, the High Commissioner stated: “Sri Lanka has struggled to move forward with domestic accountability mechanisms that are credible and have the trust and confidence of victims. This is why Sri Lankans have looked outside for justice, through assistance at the international level.” By blocking accountability successive Sri Lankan governments have deepened the suffering of victim communities, and broken commitments made to the Human Rights Council to ensure truth, justice and reparations.
The series of Human Rights Council resolutions since the war ended has shown Member States’ determination that there must be accountability for these crimes, including by establishing OSLAP to collect and preserve evidence in 2021. Those mandates have been among the very few remaining sources of hope for victims and their families seeking justice. More recently, Sri Lankan governments have rejected the Council’s resolutions outright, while valorizing “war heroes.”
In a statement to the Council on October 9, 2024, the then newly elected Sri Lankan government pledged that “[d]omestic mechanisms and processes that deal with reconciliation, accountability and justice will be credible and independent,” and stated that, “[a]s directed by the President, investigative authorities have already announced redoubling of investigation into a number of clearly identified accountability cases that were pending from the past.” However, there is little if any observable progress – whether active investigations or prosecutions, much less convictions – towards these commitments. Little has changed since prosecutions in a number of emblematic cases were halted under President Gotabaya Rajapaksa (2019-2022). While there remains no apparent prospect of new investigations or prosecutions related to human rights violations or war crimes in the northeast, high-profile proceedings such as in the 2009 murder of Colombo-based newspaper editor Lasantha Wickrematunge, and the 2010 enforced disappearance of journalist Prageeth Ekneligoda, both remain stalled, although the police have collected extensive evidence of security forces involvement in both cases. Since his election, President Dissanayake has made no progress towards his campaign promise to make the prosecutors’ office politically independent. Neither has there been any apparent progress in a promised investigation of the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings, which killed over 250 people, although President Dissanayake has supported claims by whistleblowers and the Catholic church that there was a cover-up of state complicity in the attacks.
Long and bitter experience has caused victims, their families and communities, to lose faith in domestic institutions and processes that have sought to shield alleged perpetrators. Victims’ families have therefore engaged with OSLAP, despite the risk of government reprisals – a risk that continues under the current administration.[1]
Since his election, President Dissanayake has spoken of “reconciliation,” but despite subsequently securing a large parliamentary majority his government has not taken any steps that demonstrate a willingness to appropriately address conflict-era crimes. While a country that endured decades of civil war should embark upon a process of truth telling and reconciliation, this cannot replace the need for a simultaneous justice and accountability process.
Recommendations to the government:
Allow OSLAP access to Sri Lanka to undertake investigations and to meet with victims and witnesses of crimes under international law;
Promptly initiate the process to create the Directorate of Public Prosecutions, separate from the attorney general’s office, as pledged in the election manifesto of the President’s party;
Build on and utilize evidence gathered by previous domestic commissions of inquiry to pursue justice and accountability; and
Ensure fair and thorough investigations of major crimes including the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings, and of emblematic cases that were partially investigated and prosecuted between 2015-19 before those investigations were dropped under President Gotabaya Rajapaksa.
Enforced Disappearances and Mass Graves
Sri Lanka has one of the world’s highest rates of enforced disappearances, numbering in the tens of thousands, including those who disappeared during the 1980s Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) insurgency and during and after the civil war between the government and the LTTE. Previous governments have for decades refused to reveal the fate of the disappeared, or to prosecute those responsible. The government’s Office of Missing Persons (OMP) has made almost no apparent progress investigating cases and is widely distrusted by victims’ families.
At least 20 mass graves have been discovered throughout the island, often by accident. Earlier this year a fresh investigation began at Chemmani, near Jaffna, after construction workers uncovered human remains. By late July 2025 the remains of over 100 people, including children, suspected to have been victims of extra-judicial killings by the Sri Lankan army, had been discovered, but lawyers working on the case believe the site may contain many more. Sri Lankan authorities lack the technical capacity to rigorously investigate mass grave sites, and in the past a lack of political will has also undermined investigations, meaning that almost no victims’ remains have ever been identified or other evidence suitably preserved.
When he visited Chemmani and met families of the disappeared on June 25 2025, UN High Commissioner Türk said, “One thing that needs to be done is thorough investigations… by independent experts with forensic expertise who can bring out the truth.”
Recommendations to the government:
End the security forces’ harassment and intimidation of relatives of the disappeared who are campaigning for truth and justice;
Accept international technical assistance to investigate mass graves throughout the island, and identify remains including by DNA testing;
Reform or replace the OMP, to ensure a body that is credible in the eyes of victims’ families, and upholds their rights;
Use evidence gathered by the OMP and numerous commissions of inquiry to reveal the fate of the disappeared;
Allow robust and independent criminal investigations and prosecutions of people alleged to be responsible for enforced disappearances; and Invite the Working Group on Enforced Disappearances to visit Sri Lanka for the first time since 2019.
Surveillance and Intimidation of Families and Human Rights Defenders
In the north and east of Sri Lanka, the areas which were most affected by the civil war, police and intelligence agencies continue to monitor and intimidate the families of victims who are campaigning for justice, as well as human rights defenders and other members of civil society. Among other things, security agencies attempt to monitor victim families’ and activists’ engagement with OSLAP and with the Human Rights Council process. The NGO Secretariat, responsible for regulating civil society organizations, is part of the Ministry of Public Security, indicating that civil society is treated as a threat to public security.
“Every day the police are visiting my house,” a human rights defender in Batticaloa, Eastern Province, told Human Rights Watch in July. A woman in Trincomalee, who has shared extensive information with OSLAP, said counterterrorism police questioned her at her home for three hours in June. “The monitoring is tighter now,” she said. “Sometimes they [police] approach our children to get information about us. That is a type of threat.” According to another human rights defender in the northeast, “The Sri Lankan government wants to show that they allowed the [UN] High Commissioner [for Human Rights] into the country, but they never give a visa for OSLAP to collect the victims’ and witnesses statements.”
Recommendations to the government:
Direct security agencies to end the harassment and intimidation of victims’ families and human rights defenders who are campaigning for truth and justice, including threats and intimidation related to their engagement with UN human rights mechanisms.
Prevention of Terrorism Act
President Dissanayake’s election manifesto included a commitment to the “[a]bolition of all oppressive acts including the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) and ensuring civil rights of people in all parts of the country.” Previous governments have made similar commitments, including repeatedly to the Human Rights Council. However, since his election the authorities have continued to use the PTA to detain people, often from minority communities, without credible evidence to support terrorism allegations. Many Muslims who were arrested and detained under the PTA without evidence of wrongdoing in connection with the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings continue to face harassment from the security forces.
According to human rights defenders in the Northern and Eastern provinces, members of the police and intelligence agencies routinely warn that they will be accused of terrorism because of their work. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) found in September 2023 that “broad application of counter-terrorism rules” restricts civil society scrutiny of official corruption.
Recommendations to the government:
Immediately impose a full moratorium on the use of the PTA, and promptly implement the commitment to repeal it;
Release remaining long-term PTA prisoners who were convicted on the basis of confessions obtained under torture;
Ensure that any new counterterrorism legislation is compliant with international human rights standards; and
Direct security agencies to end the harassment and intimidation of people, mostly Tamils and Muslims, who were previously accused under the PTA and released due to lack of evidence.
Rights to Freedom of Religion or Belief
The campaign to redesignate Hindu temples as Buddhist sites gathered speed in 2020, when then-President Gotabaya Rajapaksa established the Presidential Task Force for Archaeological Heritage Management in the Eastern Province. Although the task force is no longer active, the policy has continued under President Dissanayake. Agencies, including the Department of Archaeology, Department of Forests, Department of Wildlife Conservation, the military, and the police, have taken part in a concerted strategy assailing the culture and practices of religious minorities. In many cases, private lands belonging to Hindu or Muslim communities have also been affected. These actions violate rights including to freedom of religion or belief, and make government rhetoric of postwar “reconciliation” appear hollow.
Recommendations to the government:
Direct state agencies to end the practices of encroaching upon or denying access to minority religious sites;
Ensure that the police and other state agencies respect court orders upholding the rights of minorities to religious sites; and
Ensure that minority communities’ rights to lands that they use for economic activities are not subject to discriminatory interference or obstruction by government agencies.
[1] For example, according to a report by the Jaffna-based Adayaalam Centre for Policy Research, “In February 2024, two leaders from the FOD {Families of the Disappeared]… travelled to Geneva for advocacy meetings, and faced targeted harassment. While they were away, the [plainclothes police] CID interrogated their family members, relatives, villagers and other FOD, inquiring about the whereabouts and purpose of their travels. Upon their return, they were interrogated and harassed. The activist mentioned above, in particular, has been summoned by both the [anti-terrorism] CTID and CID several times since then… [One] activist concerned told the CID, ‘[Y]ou are not looking for my husband who has forcibly disappeared but are always looking for me!’” Adayaalam Centre for Policy Research, A Phantom that is Real: persisting culture of surveillance and intimidation in the north-east, February 2025, https://adayaalam.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/A-Phantom-that-is-Real_-Persisting-Culture-or-Surveilance-and-Intimidation-in-the-NorthEast.pdf (accessed August 4, 2025).
