Stop-Torture-Report

V. Conclusions
The Sri Lanka government has spent years hiding the extent of torture and
sexual violence perpetrated by its security forces behind claims of having a
“zero tolerance policy on sexual and gender based violence” much as it once
claimed to wage “ a zero civilian casualty war”.
Our first report, An Unfinished War: Torture and Sexual Violence in Sri Lanka
2009-2014, concluded that the abduction and arbitrary detention of witnesses
by the Government of Sri Lanka and its agencies were a clear violation of
Article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Articles 9; 9(1);
9(2); 9(3); 9(4); and 9(5) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights (ICCPR), which contain provisions to safeguard against arbitrary
detention and abuse in detention 82 . It also concluded that the evidence we had
gathered then pointed to the security forces of the Government of Sri Lanka
having violated the rights of the witnesses through torture, rape and sexual
violence, cruel and inhuman and degrading treatment.
This further study has added more evidence on which to make the same
conclusions, namely a larger base of victims spread out in more countries, as
well as several key security force and government insider witnesses including,
informers, soldiers and a “white van” operator to corroborate their accounts.
The evidence demonstrates a pattern of widespread and systematic torture,
rape and other forms of sexual violence, cruel and inhuman and degrading
treatment, terrorisation, illegal detention, killings and enforced disappearance,
and persecution, which continue to be committed six years after the end of the
war by the security forces of the state of Sri Lanka against civilians in Sri Lanka.
82 112th Session of the Human Rights Committee, Consideration of Sri Lanka’s 5th Periodic Report under the International Covenant on
Civil and Political Rights, 7-8 October 2014, accessed
at http://tbinternet.ohchr.org/Treaties/CCPR/Shared%20Documents/LKA/INT_CCPR_AIS_LKA_18459_E.pdf
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