Human Rights Commission reports:

Steep drop in HRV

Chamikara Weerasinghe

Complaints relating to human and fundamental rights violations received by the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka represent a steep drop in their number, Commission Secretary Chandra Ellawala told the Daily News yesterday.

“We have observed that there is a significant drop in the number of human rights violation complaints received by us for the past two years up to the first quarter of this year,” Ellawala said. “The average annual inflow of complaints have dropped by thousands during the last few years,” she said. The Commission used to get 7,000 to 8,000 human rights violation complaints several years ago, but these numbers have dropped in thousands over the past few years.

Referring to the current situation of human rights in Sri Lanka, Ellawala said the number of complaints received by the Commission during the first quarter of 2010 is much less when compared to the first quarter of 2009.

The drop in the number of complaints relating to human rights violations is 25 percent, she said.

These violations involve torture, harassment, arrest and detention, school admissions, service extensions, transfers, medical negligence, promotions , recruitments, deaths, salaries among others.

About 40 percent of the complaints relate to violations of rights of the government workers by denial of right to equal protection of the law or equality before the law.

Other complaints relate to alleged violations by members of the police and the armed forces.

All these have gone down , sources at the Human Rights Commission’s Head Office said.

Most complaints relate to enforcement of the Prevention of Terrorism Act and Emergency Regulations. Some allegations are of a serious nature and include illegal arrest and detention, abduction, torture, homicide, and disappearances.These cases have also dropped, sources said.

The Commission has addressed the problem of several special population groups, namely, internally displaced persons (IDPs), migrant workers and disabled persons.

It called for the attention of the authorities on some problems faced by these groups. A project has been formulated by the Commission with the assistance of the Colombo office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to address IDPs’ problems.

The Human Rights Commission holds regular meetings with police and armed forces officials and government institutions to discuss issues relating to alleged human rights violations on a special directive issued by President Mahinda Rajapaksa ordering them to cooperate with the Commission, the sources said.All these measures have contributed to reducing human rights violations, they added.