A British charity that is pushing for a halt to deportations to Sri Lanka has handed the UN a file of medical evidence to support allegations that authorities there are continuing to torture opponents.
The submission by Freedom From Torture is based on a review of 35 cases drawn from the 300-plus Sri Lankans who have been referred to the charity’s UK clinics for examination or treatment over the last two years.
Physicians at the organization say detailed examinations of Sri Lankan patients show torture is still continuing, two years after the end of the 26-year civil war that led to defeat for separatist forces of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
The report is one of a number that human rights groups have submitted to the UN’s committee against torture, which is expected to examine Sri Lankan compliance with international humanitarian law.
The submission comes at a time when the British government is pressing ahead with deportations of Tamils whose asylum applications have been rejected, after the British Foreign Office and the UK Border Agency concluded that it is safe to do so.
Shortly before one mass deportation in September, the British Home Office said it was taking steps to monitor the welfare of those deported and then conceded it was not. The Sri Lankan government, meanwhile, describes allegations of ongoing torture as “unsubstantiated” and has dismissed media reports about the human rights groups’ concerns as “malicious.”
The Freedom From Torture submission draws on medico-legal reports that are based on material prepared for asylum or other legal proceedings. It says the “overwhelming majority” of Sri Lankans seen by the charity’s physicians are Tamils.
“Torture perpetrated by state actors within both the military and police has continued in Sri Lanka after the conflict ended in May 2009 and is still occurring in 2011,” it says. “These cases demonstrate the widespread and continuing use of a large number of unofficial detention facilities in which many of the individuals ... were held.”
The charity says that large numbers of the people it treats and examines have complained of sexual abuse, significant numbers have been branded by having hot implements placed horizontally across their backs and several described being suspended upside down while a plastic bag containing gasoline was placed over their heads.
The charity’s chief executive, Keith Best, said: “Our medical evidence clearly demonstrates that torture perpetrated by the Sri Lankan military and police has continued long after the end of the civil war and that those within the Tamil population who are perceived by the authorities as being supporters of the LTTE remain at risk of being detained and tortured.”
Freedom From Torture and other NGOs are concerned that the UK Border Agency is taking asylum decisions in part on the basis of a report that quotes Sri Lankan government intelligence officials as saying that some prisoners were inflicting injuries upon themselves in order to bolster subsequent asylum claims.
More than 20 of the 35 people whose cases are detailed in Freedom From Torture’s report to the UN suffered burns, usually from a heated metal rod and often across the back. Fourteen had been tortured after returning to Sri Lanka from abroad.
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