Speaking at the UN Human Rights Council, UN Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights, Nada Al-Nasif stressed in her update on Sri Lanka the importance of accountability and raised concern over the Sri Lanka’s president’s “heavy-handed approach to protests” and proposed replacement to the Prevention of Terrorism Act.
“Accountability remains the fundamental gap in attempts to deal with the past. As long as impunity prevails, Sri Lanka will achieve neither genuine reconciliation nor sustainable peace” warned Al-Nasif.
In her statement, she acknowledged the Sri Lankan president’s pledge to “stop land acquisitions”, allow for “more inclusive memorisations” and establish a new truth commission. However, she further highlighted that “Sri Lanka has witnessed too many ad hoc commissions in the past that failed to ensure accountability”. The Office of Missing Persons being a key example.
Whilst the Sri Lankan president has made these pledges it comes in the context of continued crackdowns on memorialisations, the harassment of Tamil political representatives and continued encroachments on native Tamil land.
Al-Nasif further highlighted that Sri Lanka’s president has continued a heavy-handed approach to protests by using “draconian laws to curtail opposition and control civic space”. She adds that whilst the Sri Lanka government has stated it will replace Sri Lanka’s abusive Prevention of Terrorism Act, the new “Anti-terrorism” Bill gazetted in March “contained sweeping provisions that would limit freedom of expression, peaceful assembly, and even labour rights”. She maintained her call for Sri Lanka “to implement fully a strict moratorium” on the PTA.
Speaking on the role of the UN, Al-Nasif noted how her office was actively pursuing accountability by “conducting proactive investigative work on key cases and collecting, consolidating and analysing information and evidence from a variety of UN and other sources, which is preserved in a repository so as to be used for future accountability initiatives”.
She added:
“Victims continue to be placed at the heart of this work, including through our active engagement with victim organisations and civil society more broadly”.
She further stressed that whilst it “remains the responsibility of the Sri Lankan authorities to directly acknowledge past violations and undertake credible investigations and prosecutions”; the international community should play a complementary role.
“Means to do so include use of accepted principles of universal and extraterritorial jurisdiction to investigate and prosecute alleged perpetrators, and support to the relevant accountability processes in third States, as well as fair application of targeted sanctions against credibly alleged perpetrators” she maintained.
Read the full oral statement here.
