{"id":67780,"date":"2020-02-23T19:59:00","date_gmt":"2020-02-24T00:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=67780"},"modified":"2020-02-23T20:01:10","modified_gmt":"2020-02-24T01:01:10","slug":"heightened-information-gathering-and-intimidation-by-intelligence-agencies-has-chilling-effect-on-sri-lankan-human-rights-activists-and-organizationsfears-grow-about-what-may-happen-after-parliament","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=67780","title":{"rendered":"Heightened Information Gathering and Intimidation by Intelligence Agencies Has Chilling Effect on Sri Lankan Human Rights Activists and Organizations:Fears Grow About What May Happen After Parliamentary Elections"},"content":{"rendered":"

By<\/p>\n

Amanda Hodge<\/strong><\/p>\n

Three months after Sri Lanka\u2019s feared former security minister Gotabaya Rajapaksa won a shock presidential victory, rights groups say security forces and intelligen\u00adce agencies have intensified surveillance and intimid\u00adation of activists and families of victims of his former regime.<\/p>\n

New York-based Human Rights Watch has called on the new government to end the \u00adintimidation of activists and families of those forcibly disappeared during the country\u2019s 28-year civil war, including the 10 years in which the Rajapaksa family held power until its defeat in 2015.<\/p>\n

HRW South Asia director Meenakshi Ganguly told The Australian that fresh intimidation of activists and families of the disappeared, who were still seeking answers, had already had a chilling effect and many were now scared to speak up.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cActivists working in six locations in the northern and eastern parts of the country on behalf of relatives of the forcibly dis\u00adappeared told Human Rights Watch that there has been a significant increase in government surveillance and intimidation,\u201d HRW said in a statement.<\/p>\n

The organisation cited one \u00adactivist who said that before one recent victims\u2019 meeting, \u201cevery one of the mothers received at least six telephone calls from \u00addifferent intelligence agencies asking, \u2018Where is the meeting?\u2019, \u2018Who is organising the meeting?\u2019, \u2018What is being said?\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

Another activist said: \u201cWe can\u2019t do any visible programs \u2026 We\u2019ve stopped everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe families of Sri Lanka\u2019s disappeared have spent years waiting for answers, but with the Rajapaksas back in power, security forces are threatening them to drop their demands for truth and accountability,\u201d Ms Ganguly said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe government needs to stop the harassment immediately and abide by Sri Lanka\u2019s pledges to the UN to uncover the fate of the disappeared and provide justice\u00ad to victims\u2019 families.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ms Ganguly also called on countries such as Australia, which has substantial military engagement with Sri Lanka, to press for human rights protections.<\/p>\n

Jehan Perera from Sri Lanka\u2019s National Peace Council said he, too, knew of many activists and partner organisations facing heightened scrutiny under the new government, and that the activity was having a chilling effect.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe concern is that while today there are no explicit threats or punishment, that they\u2019re gathering information\u201d for after the April general elections in which the government was expected to \u00adsecure a parliamentary majority, Mr Perera said.<\/p>\n

The accusations come a week ahead of a UN Human Rights Council sitting in Geneva at which Sri Lanka must report progress made on a 2015 resolution obliging Colombo to address the mass disappearances, which human rights groups say numbered in the tens of thousands.<\/p>\n

Gotabaya himself has been accuse\u00add of running death squads and kidnapping gangs in which notorious white vans were used to \u201cdisappear\u201d critics of the government. The former government under President Maithripala Siri\u00adsena, which lost office last Novembe\u00adr, set up an office of missing persons and an office of reparations, though was accused of dragging its feet on establishing a special court to investigate human rights violations.<\/p>\n

Since Gotabaya\u2019s election on a national security platform, following last year\u2019s Easter Sunday bombings that killed 259 people, there has been talk of cancelling Sri Lanka\u2019s commitment to the HRC resolution.<\/p>\n

Two of his government\u2019s most senior security figures, Defence Minister Kamal Gunaratne and Army Chief Shavendra Silva, have been accused of committing wartime violations as the former heads of the two main army division\u00ads that prosecuted the brutal\u00ad end of the civil war against Tamil separatists in 2009.<\/p>\n

General Silva has been banned from entering the US because of \u201ccredible\u201d accusations he presided over extra-\u00adjudicial killings.<\/p>\n

Courtesy:The Australian<\/em><\/p>\n

Tweet<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Amanda Hodge Three months after Sri Lanka\u2019s feared former security minister Gotabaya Rajapaksa won a shock presidential victory, rights groups say security forces and intelligen\u00adce agencies have intensified surveillance and intimid\u00adation of activists and families of victims of his former regime. New York-based Human Rights Watch has called on the new government to end …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘Heightened Information Gathering and Intimidation by Intelligence Agencies Has Chilling Effect on Sri Lankan Human Rights Activists and Organizations:Fears Grow About What May Happen After Parliamentary Elections’ »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67780"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=67780"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67780\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":67781,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67780\/revisions\/67781"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=67780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=67780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=67780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}