Human Rights Watch urges Govt. to take lead on ending police abuse

The New York-based global human rights organisation Human Rights Watch (HRW) yesterday urged the Sri Lankan Government to take the lead on ending police abuse if it really wants to reform the security sector.

Issuing a statement on the death of two students from northern Sri Lanka’s Jaffna University due to police shooting near a checkpoint in the early hours of 20 October 2016, the HRW said police abuse may only get worse under a proposed new anti-terrorism law that expands police powers.

Initially, police denied the shooting, saying that 23 year old Nadarasa Gajen and 24 year old Vijayakumar Sulakshan died in an accident. However, when the autopsy found bullets lodged in Sulakshan, the police said they fired in the air when the two students ignored the traffic signals and rode their motorcycle.

The five policemen attached to the Jaffna Police were arrested in connection with the incident and remanded while the Criminal Investigations Division (CID) is conducting the investigations.

HRW said Sri Lankan authorities would still very likely have covered up the incident, the norm in police abuse cases, if it weren’t for the public outrage. “Media, students, and politicians, especially in the predominantly ethnic Tamil north, refused to accept the official narrative, pointing out discrepancies. As a result of the outcry, the authorities suspended five police officers from service and placed them in custody.”

On 15 November, Sri Lanka is due to appear before the United Nations Committee Against Torture and is expected to make a case about its security sector reforms - something it agreed to take on after a 2015 UN Human Rights Council review. But this will be a difficult case to make, in large part because of police abuse, HRW Asia Director Brad Adams says.

According to the Human Rights Watch research, arbitrary arrests, torture and extrajudicial killings by the police are all too familiar, and the Government almost never holds officers responsible.

The National Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka recently confirmed the existence of unofficial Police torture centres and called for Police to end these practices. In the few cases where action has been taken against the Police, it is almost always because of public outcry or the intervention of an overstretched human rights commission.

“If the Sri Lankan Government really wants to reform its security sector, it will need to take on Police abuse, which may only get worse under a proposed new anti-terrorism law that expands Police powers. It shouldn’t be just public outrage - as with the deaths of Sulakshan and Gajan - that leads to Police accountability. The Government has to take the lead,” HRW said. (ColomboPage)