COI Report March 2012 - UK Border Agency - Home Office
COI Report March 2012 - UK Border Agency - Home Office
COI Report March 2012 - UK Border Agency - Home Office
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SRI LANKA 7 MARCH <strong>2012</strong><br />
that some terrorist suspects are held without a detention order being in place and<br />
therefore fall outside the legal framework.‖<br />
11.09 The same report 217 also observed that: ―Despite repeated calls by the international<br />
community, the International Committee of the Red Cross has not been allowed access<br />
to all former Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam fighters. The International Committee of<br />
the Red Cross has, however, continued to have access to other detainees in detention<br />
facilities throughout Sri Lanka.‖<br />
11.10 The UN Concluding observations of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural<br />
Rights 218 , dated 9 December 2010, noted that: ―The Committee is concerned about the<br />
acute overcrowding and the inhuman detention conditions which prevail in many of the<br />
State party‘s prisons. The Committee is also concerned that children are not regularly<br />
separated from adults.‖<br />
11.11 On 31 October 2010 the Sunday Observer 219 – quoting information from the<br />
Rehabilitation and Prison Reforms Minister D.E.W. Gunasekera – reported:<br />
―Acute congestion is the root cause for many problems and vices in prisons. Over<br />
148,740 prisoners were admitted to prisons in 2009. Of them 37,872 were those<br />
convicted of various crimes while the majority - 108,868 were remand prisoners. The<br />
daily average of inmates at the Welikada, Magazine and Colombo Prisons was around<br />
9,000 in 2009 despite accommodation and facilities available for less than one-third of<br />
them, he said.<br />
―The situation relating to remand prisoners is deplorable. Some of them are in prison for<br />
only a day while others are languishing for years until their release on a court order.<br />
Convicted prisoners have a work schedule and better facilities, the Minister said.‖<br />
11.12 The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Annual <strong>Report</strong> 2010, Sri<br />
Lanka 220 , released in May 2011 noted that:<br />
―…across the country the ICRC visited more than 26,000 people [26,318 detainees,<br />
monitoring 3,575 of them individually, in 123 places of detention], including those<br />
arrested and detained in relation to the former armed conflict, with a focus on those held<br />
under the Emergency Regulations or suspected of affiliation with the LTTE. Delegates<br />
checked on inmates‘ treatment and living conditions and reported their findings and<br />
recommendations confidentially to the detaining authorities. Efforts to obtain access to<br />
people held in rehabilitation centres proved unsuccessful…. More than 9,000 detainees<br />
217 Human Rights and Democracy: The 2010 Foreign & Commonwealth <strong>Office</strong> <strong>Report</strong> - Section VII:<br />
Human Rights in Countries of Concern, released on 31 <strong>March</strong> 2011<br />
http://centralcontent.fco.gov.uk/resources/en/pdf/human-rights-reports/accessible-hrd-report-2010 date<br />
accessed 24 May 2011<br />
218 UN Concluding observations of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights , dated 9<br />
December 2010 http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/cescr/docs/co/E.C.12.LKA.CO.2-4.doc date<br />
accessed 25 May 2011, p9<br />
219 Sunday Observer, Prison reforms to see the light of day, 31 October 2010<br />
http://www.sundayobserver.lk/2010/10/31/sec01.asp date accessed 24 May 2011<br />
220 International Committee of the Red Cross, Annual <strong>Report</strong> 2010, Sri Lanka, released in May 2011<br />
http://www.icrc.org/eng/assets/files/annual-report/current/icrc-annual-report-2010-sri-lanka.pdf date<br />
accessed 19 May 2011<br />
98 The main text of this <strong>COI</strong> <strong>Report</strong> contains the most up to date publicly available information as at 3 February <strong>2012</strong>.<br />
Further brief information on recent events and reports has been provided in the Latest News section<br />
to 2 <strong>March</strong> <strong>2012</strong>.