As the nation prepares to appoint a new leader in September, the UN Human Rights Office stated on Thursday that the country’s fundamental rights were in danger.
Sri Lanka, which will keep its first national election since recovering from a severe economic crisis, has no reformed its human rights security system despite vowing to do so, according to a report released on Thursday by the UN agency.
Instead, regulations and charges introduced since 2023 have given “broad forces to the safety forces” and expanded “restrictions on freedom of expression and mind and relationship”, OHCHR said.
UN Human Rights Chief Volker Turk said in a statement that” this craze is especially concerning because the nation is in an important pre-election time.”
OHCHR even highlighted the “erosion of political checks and balances, continuous threats and harassment against civil society and reporters, and frequency” of past right violations.
According to the review, the condition has continued to arbitrarily apprehend and arrest people, citing recent incidents like” torture and deaths in custody.”
Since the close of a decades-long civil war against the secessionist Tamil Tigers in 2009, Sri Lanka has maintained a huge martial in relation to its 22 million people.
Turk urged the South Asian nation to “recognise sufferers ‘ enduring” and “acknowledge security forces ‘ function” in committing “gross human rights violations” as the report blamed violence and a continuing lack of accountability.
A lightning martial unpleasant killed at least 40, 000 residents in the last month of the battle, according to UN estimations. Sri Lankan troops were accused of shelling residents without warning.
” Acts and violations committed during and after the legal war… must not go unchecked”, the High Commissioner said.
Sri Lanka ran out of foreign exchange for essential imports in April 2022, causing the country to default on its$ 46 billion foreign debt.
Decades of food, fuel, and medical shortages across the island nation were brought on by an unprecedented financial crisis in 2022, which triggered widespread turmoil.
Austerity steps followed, seriously impacting women and the poor in special, the review noted.
Regional elections were scheduled to take place next year, but they were postponed indefinitely after the government insisted it had no wealth to hold a global election.
