AIUSA activists in Chicago demand the release of Internally Displaced People in Sri Lanka. November 2009. (c) AI

Across the U.S., from Boston to Chicago to San Francisco, Amnesty International activists are demanding:  “Unlock the camps in Sri Lanka!”

As the 26-year-old war between the Sri Lankan government and the opposition Tamil Tigers ended this past May, about 280,000 Tamil civilians fleeing the fighting were put in overcrowded, military-run camps which they were not allowed to leave.  The Sri Lankan government said that the civilians first had to be screened to determine if any of them were Tiger fighters.  Amnesty International has pointed out that this constitutes arbitrary detention and violates the civilians’ right to freedom of movement.

Although some civilians have been released from the camps, around 150,000 still remain and camp shelters have deteriorated as Sri Lanka has entered the rainy season.

Amnesty’s “Unlock the Camps” campaign calls on the Sri Lankan government to let civilians leave the camps if they wish, to put the camps under civilian (not military) management, and to allow aid agencies full access to the camps.

Earlier this month, AIUSA members gathered in Boston and San Franscisco signed petitions and postcards demanding that the Sri Lankan government “Unlock the Camps!” (more…)

Freedom of expression is again under assault in Sri Lanka.  On October 22, two editors at the Sunday Leader (a Sri Lankan newspaper), Frederica Jansz and Munza Mushataq, received identical death threats in the mail, handwritten in red ink.  Ms. Jansz is the editor-in-chief and Ms. Mushataq is the news editor.  The threats relate to coverage by the paper of a video which allegedly showed Sri Lankan soldiers executing Tamil prisoners.

The paper’s founder and former editor-in-chief, Lasantha Wickrematunge, was killed last January after receiving a similar death threat three weeks earlier.  No one has yet been prosecuted for his murder.

Last month, Dileesha Abeysundera, who works for the Sinhala-language edition of the Sunday Leader, was threatened.  The newspaper has suffered numerous serious attacks on its staff and offices in the past. 

Over the past three years, numerous journalists have been detained in Sri Lanka while others have fled the country.  At least 14 media workers have been killed.  Investigations haven’t resulted in  prosecutions.  For more on this issue, see the AI report, “Sri Lanka:  Silencing dissent.”

Amnesty International has issued an urgent action appeal calling on the Sri Lankan government to ensure the safety of Frederica Jansz and Munza Mushataq, and to investigate the death threats received by them and the attacks on other Sri Lankan journalists and media workers.  Please take action in response to our appeal and write to President Mahinda Rajapaksa (email:  prsec@presidentsoffice.lk).   Thanks for your help.

Amnesty International has been calling on the Sri Lankan government to grant freedom of movement to over 250,000 displaced civilians now being held in internment camps in the north.  The government has said that it can’t allow civilians to leave the camps until they’ve been screened to determine if any of them are connected to the opposition Tamil Tigers.  (For more information on this subject, please see our Sri Lanka page.)  The Sri Lankan government has announced releases of some of the civilians.  But are they actually being released?

Amnesty has received reports that some of those released have apparently been transferred to other camps where they may be subjected to additional screening by local authorities.  The UN has also reported that some of the displaced civilians have been transferred from the camps and are now being held in transit sites in other areas with restricted freedom of movement.  The UN refugee agency last week said that they were concerned about approximately 3,300 displaced civilians who’ve been held in transit sites for more than two weeks rather than being returned to their homes.  A British minister visiting the camps this week said that the British government funding couldn’t support people simply being transferred from one “closed” camp (meaning, a camp which people aren’t free to leave) to another closed camp.

The displaced civilians should be immediately allowed to leave the camps if they wish.  Unlock the camps now!

I heard some very disturbing news last night.  Dileesha Abeysundera, a Sri Lankan journalist and media rights activist, is in danger.  Several unidentified people traveling in white vans tried to break into her compound in Colombo (Sri Lanka’s capital city) at 11:45 P.M. on Sept. 28.  While they didn’t succeed and Dileesha wasn’t harmed, I’m very worried for her.   The use of white vans was particularly chilling; they’ve been used in many abductions and enforced disappearances in Sri Lanka since 2006. 

Dileesha had organized a meeting on Sept. 28 calling for the abolition of the Press Council Act, a law which restricts freedom of expression in Sri Lanka by prohibiting publication of materials relating to economic policy, government documents and other topics.  The Sri Lankan government has repeatedly defended the Act.  It’s thought that she was threatened that evening because of her work in organizing the meeting that day.

Over 14 media workers have been killed since 2006 with no one brought to justice in any of these cases.  For more information on how freedom of expression has been under attack in Sri Lanka, please see our report, “Sri Lanka:  Silencing dissent.”

Please write to President Mahinda Rajapaksa in Sri Lanka and ask him to ensure Dileesha’s safety and to investigate the attempted intimidation of her.  Please also ask him to investigate the attacks, including killings, of other Sri Lankan journalists and media workers.  His address is:  Presidential Secretariat, Colombo 1, Sri Lanka; email:  prsec@presidentsoffice.lk.  Thanks for your consideration.

I have two issues on my mind about the displaced civilians being held in internment camps in Sri Lanka:  (1) will the camps be able to cope with the coming monsoon rains, and (2) are the civilians safe in the camps now?

On the first issue, a British minister visiting the camps said Tuesday that freedom of movement for the displaced was critical now, especially with the rains expected soon.  (Amnesty International has been calling on the Sri Lankan government to allow the civilians to leave the camps if they wish; for more information on this topic, please see our Sri Lanka page.)   The BBC was allowed to accompany the minister as he toured the camps and heard heartrending pleas from the displaced civilians about poor conditions in the camps.  The Sri Lankan government has said that the camps will be ready for the monsoon, although a UN expert who visited the camps last week expressed serious concerns about whether the camps would be equipped to deal with the heavy rains.

On the second issue, the UN refugee agency said last week it was concerned for the safety of the displaced civilians in the camps, after an incident on Sept. 26th in which some civilians attempting to move between areas of a camp were stopped by the security forces.  The angered civilians then attacked the security forces who responded by opening fire, resulting in several injuries, including a child who is now paralyzed.

As the visiting British minister said, allowing displaced civilians to leave the camps would do much to address the first issue.  I think it would also help a lot on the second issue; allowing people more control over their own lives would do a lot to ease any bitterness or tension.  If you haven’t already, please consider joining in our Unlock the Camps campaign and ask the Sri Lankan government to restore freedom of movement now to the displaced civilians.

The Sri Lankan President said last Saturday that no members of the Sri Lankan military would be charged for any crimes during the recent war with the opposition Tamil Tigers.  Amnesty International has been calling for an international investigation into violations of human rights and international humanitarian law, including war crimes, committed by both sides during the fighting.  (For background on this topic, please see our Sri Lanka page.)  The Sri Lankan government promised the U.N. last May that it would address the need for accountability for past abuses during the war.  The Sri Lankan government should live up to its promises to the U.N. and should facilitate an independent, international investigation now.

There was some news this week regarding the internally displaced civilians in northern Sri Lanka.  Amnesty International has been campaigning for the civilians to be allowed freedom of movement; currently, most of them have been held in overcrowded camps which they are not permitted to leave, until the Sri Lankan government has completed a screening process to determine whether any of the civilians have links to the Tamil Tigers.  (For background on this story, see our Sri Lanka page.)  This past Monday in Geneva, the Sri Lankan Minister of Disaster Management and Human Rights told the Executive Committee of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees this past Monday that:

“The authorities in charge of maintaining the camps have also put in place a system of day-passes whereby IDPs [internally displaced persons] who need to attend to specific wants, ranging from attending a family wedding to visiting their bank in a nearby town, can leave the camps for a limited period of time.”

This was the first I’d heard of a day-pass system.  I think it’s a welcome development.  However, it doesn’t substitute for the freedom of movement the displaced civilians are entitled to.  The Sri Lankan government should immediately allow the displaced civilians to leave the camps if they wish.  Unlock the camps now!

Mostly I’ve been blogging about the internally displaced civilians who are being held in internment camps in northern Sri Lanka.  The Sri Lankan government says they can’t be released until they’ve been screened to determine if any are former fighters with the opposition Tamil Tigers.  Amnesty International is conducting our “Unlock the Camps” campaign to demand that these displaced civilians get the freedom of movement they’re entitled to.

Today, however, I want to talk about the more than 10,000 suspected Tiger members who are being held, separately from the displaced civilians, by the Sri Lankan government.  Amnesty International reported today that one of those detainees, Sri Chandramorgan, was seriously injured last Tuesday when he tried to escape from the teachers training college where he is being held.  The college is being used as an unofficial detention center to hold suspected former combatants.  It was rumored that Sri Chandramorgan had been killed when he tried to escape; the rumor of his killing sparked a clash between the security forces and the detainees at the college.

Unofficial detention centers, which aren’t officially acknowledged by the government, unfortunately have a long history in Sri Lanka and have been used to facilitate torture, disappearances and political killings by the security forces.  The International Committee of the Red Cross has had no access to the suspected Tiger members being held by the government.  Many of them have not had contact with anyone outside the detention centers, most of which are not officially acknowledged as places of detention by the government.

Although the Tamil Tigers were responsible for thousands of grave human rights abuses during the war with the Sri Lankan government, that does not mean that former Tiger combatants (or those suspected of links with the Tigers) do not have any rights.  They should be treated humanely, in officially recognized places of detention, and not be subjected to torture or other ill-treatment.  They should be allowed access to their families, lawyers and doctors and have the right to challenge the lawfulness of their detention in court.  They should be promptly charged with a recognizable crime in civilian courts and provided a fair trial in accordance with international standards.

I know some may say that the Tigers didn’t afford any of this to the people they held prisoner during the war, but surely the Sri Lankan government wouldn’t want to use the Tigers as a standard of measurement for adherence to human rights standards?

Human Rights Watch said something on Sri Lanka yesterday at the UN Human Rights Council that bears repeating:

“Additionally, the Council should establish an independent international investigation into violations of international humanitarian law during the fighting between the government and the LTTE.”

Amnesty International has been calling for such an investigation for some time.  Thousands of civilians were killed in the last stages of the fighting between the Sri Lankan government and the opposition Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).  Amnesty has received testimonies that both the Sri Lankan security forces and the LTTE were responsible for severe violations of international human rights and humanitarian law, including war crimes, during the fighting.  The Sri Lankan government had promised the UN in a joint statement in late May to investigate those violations, but since then nothing has been done by the Sri Lankan government to fulfill those promises.  Yesterday, a UN official said that the UN was concerned about the lack of progess on this issue, among others in Sri Lanka.  The UN should establish an international investigation now.

The UN Human Rights Council started its twelfth regular session in Geneva today.  I’m hoping that this time, unlike last May, we’ll see the Council take some effective action to protect the human rights of the displaced civilians in Sri Lanka.

In her statement today to the Council, Navanethem Pillay, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, had the following to say of the displaced civilians in Sri Lanka:

“In Sri Lanka, internally displaced presons are effectively detained under conditions of internment.  Humanitarian agencies’ access to these camps remains restricted, and the mandates of relief agencies are increasingly coming under threat.”

In response to the High Commissioner’s statement, Mahinda Samarasinghe, the Sri Lankan Minister of Disaster Management and Human Rights, told the Council that the internally displaced civilians would be allowed to leave the camps once they were screened to ensure that they weren’t members of the opposition Tamil Tigers.  The Minister gave no timeframe for when this screening might be completed.  So far, 6,490 people are reported to have been released from the camps, out of a total population of about 265,000.

Unfortunately for the Sri Lankan government, arbitrary detention of the displaced civilians isn’t allowed under international law – specifically, the UN Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement.  The Principles do say that if in “exceptional circumstances” it is “absolutely necessary” to confine internally displaced civilians in a camp, such confinement can’t “last longer than required by the circumstances” (see Principle 12(2)).  The Sri Lankan government claims that members of the Tigers may be hidden among the civilians and that if these members of the Tigers were released, they could resume attacks.  If the Sri Lankan government’s logic were correct, the government would be equally justified in rounding up the entire Tamil population throughout the country, and detaining them all until they could prove they weren’t members of the Tigers.  The internally displaced civilians shouldn’t have to prove their innocence to win the freedom of movement they’re entitled to.

I hope the UN Human Rights Council takes up again the situation in Sri Lanka and gets the Sri Lankan government to release the internally displaced civilians from the camps as soon as possible.

It was also reported today that UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was sending the UN’s political chief, B. Lynn Pascoe, to Sri Lanka tomorrow for talks with the Sri Lankan government, including on the issue of getting the internally displaced civilians released from the camps.  Even if the UN Human Rights Council doesn’t act, I hope the Secretary-General is able to get the displaced civilians released soon.