WESTERN diplomats in Colombo said yesterday Sri Lankan security forces members may be denied visas if they have human rights abuse charges against them, after one senior police officer said a European country had rejected him, the AFP reported.
“The checking on any reports of abuses was something that was done even before, but now there is a new urgency to screen more thoroughly,” an official at a Western embassy said.
He said all visa applicants were routinely subjected to interviews, but in the case of military personnel and police any adverse rights record would be grounds to deny a visa.
An inspector involved in expelling minority ethnic Tamils from Colombo this month told reporters at the weekend he had been denied a visa to an unnamed European country because of the action.
The Supreme Court on Friday restrained police Chief Victor Perera and all officers in charge of stations in Colombo from carrying out any more evictions of minority Tamils. All military personnel and police would also face tight screening and could be denied visas if they faced court charges for rights abuses in the country's bitter ethnic war, other Western diplomats said.
Human rights organisations have already called for foreign travel bans on Sri Lankan officials implicated in rights abuses