Stop-Torture-Report

Reprisals for Participating in Political Activity: Outside Sri Lanka 72
In several cases witnesses mentioned that they or their family members had
been questioned about their participation in anti-government protests or war
commemoration events abroad. Some reported the Sri Lankan security forces
had showed them, or their families, photographs of themselves at these
protests. This indicates the Sri Lankan security forces are monitoring these
gatherings outside the country. In the UK at least, some Tamil diaspora
organisations have responded by banning cameras at annual Heroes’ Day
commemorations for the safety of the participants.
Reprisals for Participating in Political Activities: Inside Sri Lanka
One recent witness was abducted in a “white van” during the 8 January 2015
presidential election campaign and tortured and sexually abused. He was
kicked, slapped, punched, beaten with batons and plastic pipes filled with
sand, beaten on the soles of the feet, burned with cigarettes butts, his head
was covered with a plastic bag sprayed with petrol, his head was submerged in
water. He said he was also sexually assaulted but was too distressed to go into
the detail. His torturers warned him not to get involved in campaigning for the
Tamil National Alliance or TNA. “They said I am trying to turn people against
the government and diminish its reputation internationally,” said the witness,
“My detainers mentioned my TNA activity and said I shouldn’t do this”.
Several witnesses have testified that although children and spouses have
disappeared, they and other relatives are now too frightened to search for
them. One man said his parents-in-law were witnessed being abducted in
Jaffna in 2008 and since then have disappeared without trace. A witness to the
abduction was killed on his way to identify the suspects in court.
72 For further discussion of surveillance abroad see Page 63 of our March 2014 report, An Unfinished War: Torture and Sexual Violence in
Sri Lanka 2009-2014.
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