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2009 to document and keep tabs on all potential LTTE sympathisers. The<br />
information gathered is maintained and shared among security forces, and<br />
serves as the basis for the ongoing surveillance, which ensures an ongoing<br />
climate of fear and oppression. In 2014 the government introduced electronic<br />
identity cards for what it said were national security reasons 69 .<br />
Furthermore, in each “rehabilitation camp”, where at least 11,000 suspected<br />
LTTE cadres were detained for years, every inmate was photographed and<br />
fingerprinted, forced to give all their family details including names and<br />
addresses and were assigned a reference number; these were kept in files that<br />
moved with the inmates to different locations.<br />
In addition, almost all those abducted and taken to unknown, illegal or secret<br />
sites, military camps and/or police stations report being forced to sign<br />
confession documents that were written for them in Sinhala, a language they<br />
could not read; it is likely these documents have been stored for future use. All<br />
the indications are the Sri Lankan security structures have meticulous records<br />
of everyone who was detained or who had any past connection to the LTTE or<br />
lived under LTTE control, even (as with many of our witnesses) if they were not<br />
members of the LTTE. This is information that the government and security<br />
forces sadly refuse to share with the families of the disappeared who are still<br />
desperately seeking answers six years after the end of the war.<br />
Many released detainees who have provided ITJP with statements have been<br />
required to report to local police stations and/or military camps to sign in, like<br />
an attendance register. Many of them are sexually abused when they do so.<br />
Others are repeatedly visited in their homes by security forces, which makes<br />
the young women of the family especially feel very insecure. The security forces<br />
have unfettered access to Tamil homes to inspect, monitor and record, with<br />
the result that even one’s own home is not safe, especially when some are little<br />
better than flimsy shacks with no locks on the door to prevent intruders at<br />
night.<br />
69 Sri Lanka’s new e-NICs collect personal data, family information, adoption details, Shania Smith, 26 August 2014, The Republic<br />
Square, Accessed at http://www.therepublicsquare.com/tech/2014/08/sri-lankas-new-e-nics-collect-personal-data-familyinformation-adoption-details/<br />
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