Law and societytrust

Programme Goal
To catalyze an improvement in human rights protection in Sri Lanka. The Program hopes to achieve this through a combination of advocacy, activism, training, research, analysis, information dissemination and working with other groups in order to influence decision makers.

Programme Context
Sri Lanka has suffered from multiple violent conflicts over the past two decades, resulting in massive human rights violations. The war between government security forces and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), mostly in the North and East of the island, has killed more than 70,000 people since 1983. Successive governments have invoked the needs of “national security” to justify their “anti-terrorism” strategies, including severe restrictions placed on freedom of the press and freedom of movement. The re-introduction of Emergency Regulations in August 2005 broadened security forces’ powers of arrest and detention, and contributed to the growing culture of impunity.

In its military operations, security forces have committed the gravest of human rights violations, ranging from extra-judicial killings and indiscriminate bombing of civilian areas, to arbitrary arrests and detention, torture and death in custody, and involuntary disappearances. The LTTE has, for its part, engaged in political assassinations, suicide bombings, arbitrary arrests, torture, forced recruitment of young men and women, including children, as combatants, and continued attacks on civilian and economic targets. It has also restricted freedom of movement, expression and association in the areas it controls.

Another direct effect of the war has been the displacement of more than 1 million Sri Lankans, mainly from the North and East, including a significant population of Muslims forced out by the LTTE from areas of the North and East. Even those displaced persons who returned to the remains of their homes continued to face difficulties which deprive them of their rights guaranteed under the Constitution. In breach of the UN Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, return for many displaced persons has not been safe, dignified or, in some cases, voluntary. In short, the ongoing armed conflict between the government and the LTTE has seriously eroded equal enjoyment of the full spectrum of interconnected and indivisible civil, economic, social, political and cultural rights by all Sri Lankans.{mospagebreak}