The deportation of Tamil asylum seekers, due for Thursday, has been halted by the High Court in London.

The landmark ruling means that the deportations of all failed Tamil asylum seekers will have to be reviewed.

A UK Border Agency spokesman told Channel 4 News: "We are disappointed with the outcome of this hearing and we will appeal. The ruling does not represent a blanket ban on returns to Sri Lanka."

The judge, Mr Justice Wilkie, said the situation was "virtually unique", as at the same time as this particular case, an immigration tribunal has been hearing evidence on the situation in Sri Lanka. The results from those deliberations will be used to update Home Office guidance on the risks of returning people to the country, reported Channel 4.

Mr Justice Wilkie said that the guidance on Sri Lanka was being considered "virtually afresh" and it was clear that "the existing country guidance will have to change", meaning that the failed Tamil asylum seekers could not be deported.

"That position is one which this court cannot simply blind itself to," he said.

Keith Best, chief executive of Freedom from Torture, told Channel 4 News: "In the face of such overwhelming evidence, it is a sad indictment of our political masters that it has taken a court to impose the precautions that we have repeatedly called for.

"The UKBA's removals policy for Sri Lankan Tamils remains deeply flawed. Until this is remedied many in need of the UK's protection still live with the risk of forced return to torture."

The Sri Lankan High Commission reacted in predictable fashion to a request for a comment on the result.

"We regret that once again, Channel 4 has asked us to comment pre-facto, even before its programme is aired, and without being told precise details of what is due to be broadcast. Going by your past record it is highly likely to be another spurious piece of theatre.

"In addition, the timing of your release appears to be a continuation of your sinister campaign to attempt to discredit Sri Lanka."

British Prime Minister David Cameron has praised the Tamil Diaspora's contribution to life in Britain and reiterated calls for an investigation into alleged violations of international law in Sri Lanka.

The Prime Minister's statement given to the Global Tamil Forum for their 3rd anniversary conference at the British Houses of Parliament, has been reproduced in full below.

"I am very pleased to send my best wishes to today's event, the Global Tamil Forum's 3rd Anniversary Conference.

The Tamil Diaspora has made an important contribution to our national life here in the UK, which I warmly welcome. As long-standing friends of Sri Lanka, the UK Government shares your committment to lasting peace in the country.

For it to succeed, any peace must be based on justice and rule of law, an inclusive political settlement and reconciliation between all those affected by the war. In particular, it is important that Sri Lanka properly investigates alleged breaches of humanitarian and international law and that those responsible are held to account.

After Sri Lanka's very difficult recent history, all parties must work together to heal their country. I hope those gathered together at the conference can play a positive role in ensuring we achieve that goal, and I wish them every success."

TNA MP Suresh Premachandran has stated that the Tamil National Alliance would not be waiting "forever" to pursue the South African initiative of talks between the Tamil party and the Sri Lankan government, stating that pre-conditions for talks had already been laid out.

Speaking to the Tamil Guardian, Premachandran said,

"They (Sri Lanka) want to use (it) to show to the world that the Sri Lankan government and the Tamil people, we are discussing matters. That's what they want to do, but we told these things very clearly to the South African government, this is what the government is doing."

"This will be within a time frame matter. We don't want to give a free open space to continue forever. Maybe it will take place within a short period of time. That's what we told them already.

"We told them this must be outside of Sri Lanka and there must be international observers to these talks. And there must be a proper facilitation from them and these must be continuous talks. All these things were told by us to them. So if they agree to all these things only, then the talks will take place, otherwise there won’t be anything. We hope, I don’t know whether the Sri Lankan government will accept all these pre-conditions or demands, or however you call."

Premachandran went on to say,

"If that happens, of course there will be talks about talks. And on that time we will take up the militarisation, Sinhalisation, the political prisoners matters, various other day to day problems that must be take place (in the) first. Without resolving those things it will be very difficult to go ahead with other things, because the people will ask us “What is happeneing? You people are talking to the government but these things are still going on?”

Tamil Guardian caught up with the leader of the Tamil National Alliance, R Sampanthan, at the sidelines of the Global Tamil Forum's 3rd anniversary conference in London.

Asked for his opinion on South Africa's initiative to push for talks between the Tamils and the Sri Lankan government, R. Sampanthan said,

"South Africa is engaged in an initiative, and we have gone a visit to South Africa, and they have acquainted us with their experience and their knowledge, in regard to the resolution of their own conflict.

And we will perhaps pursue their initiative, not immediately, but after some time, and we have to await further developments to see how things go."

Find TNA MP Suresh Premachandran's comments here:

TNA will not wait 'forever' on S Africa initiative (28 February 2013)

A prominent barrister, Geoffrey Robertson QC called on Australia and other commonwealth countries to boycott the Common wealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) due to be held in Sri Lanka later this year.

In a report for England's Bar Human Rights Committee, Robertson stated,

"Governments which respect the rule of law should not attend."

 

"Nor should the Queen or any royal family member provide a photo-opportunity for President Mahinda Rajapaksa."

 

"Royal seals of approval serve the propaganda interests of people like this and no-shows by powerful nations would signal the unacceptability of their behaviour."

In accordance with a bilateral agreement signed two years ago, Sri Lanka has commenced the transfer of Indian nationals imprisoned in Sri Lankan jails back to India, announced the Indian High Commission on Thursday.

The High Commission stated that two Indians were being transferred this week under the Transer of Sentenced Persons Act. A further eighteen prisoners would be transferred back within a week, said the mission.

Meanwhile, 21 'Sri Lankan' fishermen that were held in custody by Indian officials accused of crossing the International Maritime Boundary Line, were handed over to the Sri Lankan Navy on Wednesday.

The fishermen were arrested by the Indian Coast Guard on 18th January.

Tamils Against Genocide (TAG) supported the call for India to show leadership and co-sponsor the proposed resolution on Sri Lanka at the UN Human Rights Council.

Speaking at a press conference organised by British Tamils Forum (BTF) in New Delhi on Tuesday, Henrietta Briscoe of TAG argued that India should push to make the US based resolution stronger and emphasised the need for an independent international investigation into the alleged human rights violations by Sri Lanka.

Zeenews India quoted Briscoe as saying:

"India should take leadership and push for a stronger resolution. Co-sponsoring the resolution is needed,"

"An independent international inquiry is important. We also want that any investigation should not limit itself to just the last few months of the war but should look at the context and the atrocities committed on Tamils since decades."

Speaking to the Tamil Guardian about engagements with New Delhi, Briscoe said:

"We have had a very productive few days in New Delhi meeting with senior representatives across Indian political parties including the Congress party, BJP, Communist Party of India, and DMK. I have been encouraged by our warm reception and the wide support for the need for India to push for an independent, international investigation."

The Global Tamil Forum's 3rd Anniversary Conference is currently under way in the houses of parliament.

Follow us on twitter for live proceedings.

Update 16:11 GMT: Unfortunately we reached our daily limit for tweets and our now tweeting intermittently until we recover full capability. Watch this space for full coverage of the day's events.

The Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has said he will stand by his decision to boycott the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Sri Lanka later this year, in response to calls for him to withdraw the threat.

"I have indicated that unless changes occur in Sri Lanka I will not be attending the Commonwealth summit there," Harper told the Canadian parliament.

"I am concerned with further developments, since I made that statement, which are taking that country in a worse direction."

See video below.

The Secretary-General of the Commonwealth, Kamalesh Sharma had urged Harper to drop the boycott threat, however Canada has increased pressure on Sri Lanka, reporting the country to the Commonwealth for violating its democratic values and calling for a strong resolution against Sri Lanka at the ongoing 22nd session of the UN Human Rights Council.

Speaking at the 22nd session of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), the leader of the Sri Lankan delegation to the Human Rights Council and Minister of Plantation Industries, Mahinda Samarasinghe, attempted to highlight Sri Lanka’s ‘achievements’ in working towards reconciliation.

Speaking on issues related to the appropriation of Tamil land, Samarasinghe, informed the UN of Sri Lanka's plans to produce a 'Fourth Land Commission' which will address land return and resettlement disputes. Coincidentally the idea of a commission to address the land appropriation issues was only formulated a week before the start of the UNHRC sessions.

Proclaiming the resettlement of Internally Displaces Peoples as a ' historic moment', Samarasinghe told the UN,

"resettlement is now complete and there are no more IDPs or IDP camps on the island".

Samarasinghe also stated that "the strength of the military in the North has been reduced considerably", on the same day that TNA MP Sumanthiran told the GTF conference in  London, that there was 1 member of the security forces for every 5 civilians in the Northern Province.

Download a copy of Samarasinghe's speech here.

The Sri Lankan envoy also went on to cite figures of rehabilitated former 'LTTE combatants', claiming that 11456 people had been 'rehabilitated and reintegrated into society.'

The Minister went on to criticse the Tamil diaspora, adding,

"remnants of the terrorist organisation remain very active in some countries in the Western hemisphere, where their proxies are continuing to lobby host governments, opinion makers in the media and elsewhere, to undermine the peace and reconciliation process that is ongoing. It is regrettable that some part of the international community has fallen prey to these efforts absed on disinformation, outright falsehood and pressure tactics."

He also slammed the March 2012 UN HRC resolution on Sri Lanka stating, was "entirely unecessary, unwarranted and unfair".

Drawing on Government of Sri Lanka Policies that determined the treatment of suspected combatants, Samarasinghe took care to note that,

"It should be noted that GOSL adhered to a policy of treating all these children as victims, not as perpetrators and all possible efforts have been taken to look into their welfare and secure their future."

See here and here for  examples of Sri Lankan rehabilitation and reconciliation.

US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs, Robert Blake, asserted today that Sri Lanka is moving backwards in terms of democracy.

Speaking to the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Asia and the Pacific, Blake picked up on the Sri Lankan government’s failure to provide adequate devolution of power to the Tamils, stating  ,

“We’ve been disappointed that there hasn’t been no dialogue between the Tamil National Alliance, the umbrella group for the Tamil groups, as well as for the TNA to dialogue with the government for devolution.”

Blake also expressed concern regarding the slow progress towards implementing recommendations of the Lessons Learned and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) report, emphasising that the United States only supported the LLRC under the premise of “rapid progress towards reconciliation and accountability.”

Recalling the unaddressed circumstances at the end of 2009, Blake reiterated the need to provide justice before closure, pertinently asking ,

“At the very end of the war the question is, what happened to those 10,000 to 40,000 civilians who were killed?"

Sri Lankan security forces continue to systematically rape, sexually abuse and torture Tamils, almost 4 years since the end of the armed conflict, according to a report released by Human Rights Watch, earlier on Tuesday.

The 141-page report, entitled ‘“We Will Teach You a Lesson” - Sexual Violence against Tamils by Sri Lankan Security Forces’, inspected 75 cases of rape alleged to have occurred from 2006-2012 in both official and secret detention centres across Sri Lanka. The 75 cases were made up of 31 men, 41 women, and three boys aged under 18, all detained by Sri Lankan government of paramilitary forces and all subjected to torture and sexual abuse.

Harrowing accounts of rape and torture were recounted, with HRW stating that the report only accounts for “a tiny fraction of custodial rape”. Many of the cases followed similar patterns of detention, followed by torture and rape by security forces, whilst being interrogated about “LTTE activities”. Victims were also forced to sign confessions in Sinhalese, a language they did not understand, as well as being forced to identify and name other potential “suspects”. Some of the victims recounted that they signed ‘confessions’ and pointed out people as LTTE cadres, knowing that they were not, simply to put an end to the torture.

Tamils returning from abroad were also shown photographs of anti-government protests that took place in Paris and London, and forced to identify those in the images.

A former UN field officer told Human Rights Watch that,

“a large number of women fleeing from the conflict areas during the peak of fighting were sexually assaulted. The abuse was extensive, causing a large number of civilians to flee back to the theater of conflict to escape the abuse”.

HRW stated that the abuse appeared to be used “to instill terror in the broader Tamil population”, with the report noting,

"In all of the cases documented, the acts of rape and sexual violence were accompanied by other forms of torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment by state security forces,"

"The continued large-scale deployment of the armed forces in former LTTE areas of northern Sri Lanka, coupled with increased surveillance of civil society groups, has stymied community responses to rights abuses including sexual violence."

“The cases suggest that the use of sexual violence was not just a local occurrence or actions of rogue security force personnel, but a widespread practice that was known or should have been known by higher-level officials”.

David Mepham, UK director of Human Rights Watch said,

"There is method in this. It is coercive. It is a deliberate policy. People throughout the security forces in Sri Lanka are involved. This is deeply entrenched and systematic."

The group’s Asia advocacy directory, John Sifton stated,

“Not only is rape systematic, but it’s indicative of a larger pattern of abuse… This is not reconciliation, but an effort to say, ‘You lost the war, now we’re in charge.’ ”

The Sri Lankan government has accused the Tamil diaspora - whom it refers to as the 'LTTE rump' - of "cyber terrorism" by hacking into websites of the ministry of media and information.

The Minister of Media, Charitha Herath, told the state's own radio station:

“We see this as an act of cyber terrorism.”

"The timing was significant as Lanka's alleged rights atrocities was coming under the focus of the UN Human Rights Council's ongoing sessions which kicked off in Geneva yesterday."

“They operate on various fronts, this is [cyber] just one of them,"

Take heed of previous warnings...

Tamils accused of 'conspiring' with diaspora to be prosecuted (07 Oct 2012)

SL faces an economic war by Tamil diaspora - Peiris (11 Aug 2012)

SL Minister - ‘Sinister political agenda’ behind asylum seekers (03 Aug 2012)

Army tell Tamils in Jaffna - 'beware the Tamil diaspora' (14 Apr 2012)

UK based Tamil organisation, British Tamils Forum (BTF) called  the Indian government to "proactively advocate the following proposal and Co-Sponsor The U.S based resolution in the forthcoming 22nd session of United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva," in a statement published on Tuesday.

See here for statement. Reproduced in full below:

We urge India to proactively advocate the following proposal and Co-Sponsor The U.S based resolution in the forthcoming 22nd session of United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva.

Realizing that accountability is paramount for sustainable peace and reconciliations in the Island

Noting the weakness of internal mechanisms and the lack of separation of power in the Sri Lankan constitution

Strongly urges the UN to the creation of an International Commission of Investigation into the allegations of War Crimes, Crimes against Humanity and the crime of genocide against the Tamil people

Calling on the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to compile a list of individuals who were responsible for the violation of International Humanitarian Law, including extra-judicial killings, sexual violence and enforced disappearances, committed during the war.