Sri Lankan politics changed course in September, when Anura Kumara Dissanayake of the left-wing National People’s Power (NPP) alliance was elected president, replacing Ranil Wickremesinghe. Dissanayake promised more equitable economic policies and pledged to address some longstanding human rights concerns including by fighting corruption and abolishing the abusive Prevention of Terrorism Act.
However, like previous presidents, he has not supported accountability for large-scale violations that occurred during Sri Lanka’s 1983-2009 civil war between the government and the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
In parliamentary elections on November 14, Dissanayake’s NPP won a large parliamentary majority.
Sri Lanka’s economic crisis became acute in 2022, after the government defaulted on its foreign debt, causing the number of people below the World Bank’s extreme poverty line of US$2.15 a day to double to nearly 26 percent of the population. The United Nations found that the proportion of children suffering from stunting had increased. Many families struggled to access goods and services essential for their rights to education and health that the state previously provided.
In October, the UN Human Rights Council extended for one year the mandate of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to monitor and report on human rights violations in Sri Lanka and collect evidence of alleged crimes committed during the country’s civil war to support future national and international prosecutions.
Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights
Two years after protests broke out over the economic emergency, some macroeconomic indicators had stabilized but millions continued to suffer acute harms to their economic, social, and cultural rights. The crisis was triggered by economic mismanagement by political leaders, according to a Supreme Court ruling. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) linked its $3 billion bailout to governance reform and measures to increase government revenue and control expenditure.
However, the policies pursued by the Wickremesinghe administration under the IMF program shifted the burden of recovery largely onto people with low incomes, eliminating subsidies and increasing regressive sales taxes. Many struggled to obtain their livelihoods and other rights amid high inflation and declining incomes. They found it difficult to access and afford health and education services – which had historically been strong in Sri Lanka – because of cuts to public spending and low government revenues. The IMF program includes a “social spending floor,” requiring that 0.6 percent of GDP be spent on social security programs, but that is less than developing countries’ average of 1.6 percent.
Accountability and Justice
In October, the UN Human Rights Council extended by one year the mandate of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to monitor and report on human rights violations in Sri Lanka, and collect evidence of alleged crimes committed during the country’s civil war to support future judicial accountability processes. This includes abuses linked to a violent uprising by Dissanayake’s party, the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), which ended in the late 1980s after thousands of enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings by the security forces.
The 1983-2009 civil war between the government and the LTTE was marked by grave violations by both sides, but successive governments have refused to acknowledge the scale of crimes committed and shielded alleged perpetrators in the security forces from accountability. In May, the UN human rights office issued a report criticizing ongoing human rights violations and calling for international investigations and prosecutions as well as other accountability measures to address conflict-era abuses, including unresolved cases of enforced disappearance.
The Office on Missing Persons, set up by the government in 2017 to trace “disappeared” people, made almost no progress. An April UN Human Rights Committee report criticized the agency’s appointment of “individuals implicated in past human rights violations” and its “interference in the prosecution of such cases.”
The Wickremesinghe administration’s proposal to create another body to investigate wartime abuses – the Commission for Truth, Unity and Reconciliation – replicated previous failed efforts, ignored the needs of victims, and fell far short of meeting Sri Lanka’s international legal obligations. It was apparently designed to deflect international pressure over the lack of accountability for atrocity crimes and was widely rejected by victims’ groups. Its proposed scope excludes widespread abuses committed during the JVP uprisings.
The Wickremesinghe government continued to target those campaigning for truth and accountability, as well as Tamils commemorating those who died or went missing in the civil war. In May, four people were detained for seven days for holding a ceremony to remember civilian suffering at the end of the war. Victims and their families were subjected to surveillance, intimidation, false allegations, violence, and arbitrary arrests.
Freedoms of Expression and Assembly
Civil space was restricted by repressive laws and arbitrary actions by police and security agencies, particularly in predominantly Tamil resident areas in the north and east by the Wickremasinghe administration.
The government required civil society organizations to be registered with the NGO Secretariat, which is part of the Ministry of Public Security, and were subjected to intrusive restrictions. Human rights defenders and members of civil society organizations said they are closely monitored by intelligence services, and subjected to harassment, intimidation, and interference in their financing, particularly in the north and east.
The Online Safety Act, adopted in January, purportedly provides protections against online harassment, abuse and fraud, but creates broad and vague speech-related offenses punishable by prison terms of up to five years. The law establishes an “Online Safety Commission,” appointed by the president, that can decide what online speech is “false” or “harmful,” remove content, restrict and prohibit internet access, and prosecute individuals and organizations.
The UN human rights office said the Online Safety Act “could potentially criminalize nearly all forms of legitimate expression, creating an environment that has a chilling effect on freedom of expression.” Google, Apple, and Meta called the bill a “draconian system to stifle dissent” and warned it “could undermine the potential growth of Sri Lanka’s digital economy.” President Dissanayake has pledged to amend the law.
Other repressive legislation proposed by the Wickremesinghe administration included a new broadcasting law, which UN experts said could be used to “suppress dissenting voices,” a counterterrorism law which according to the UN “grants wide powers to the police – and to the military – to stop, question and search, and to arrest and detain people, with inadequate judicial oversight,” and the Non-Governmental Organization Supervision and Registration Bill, which would further restrict civil society space. However, these were not adopted before parliament was dissolved following the presidential election.
Counter Terrorism Laws
The Wickremesinghe government continued to use the draconian and abusive Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) to target perceived opponents, especially Tamils and Muslims, with threats and arbitrary detention. According to figures provided to the UN by the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka, between January 2023 and April 2024 there were 46 cases of arrests and detentions under the PTA, although the government acknowledged only nine cases over a similar period.
Since its introduction in 1979 the PTA has enabled abuses including arbitrary detention and torture due to provisions allowing for extended administrative detention, limited judicial oversight, and convictions based on confessions to the police. Like previous presidents, Dissanayake has pledged to abolish the PTA.
Freedom of Religion
Government agencies continued to appropriate Hindu and Muslim religious sites and lands occupied by Tamil and Muslim communities, on a variety of pretexts, in some cases to convert them into Buddhist temples. In particular, the government’s Department of Archaeology identified longstanding Hindu temples as ancient Buddhist sites, and the army constructed Buddhist monuments at Hindu temples while Hindu worshippers were denied access. Eight Hindu worshippers were arrested by police while engaging in festival rituals in March, detained for more than 10 days, and allegedly abused.
Drug Policy
In December 2023 the government launched operation “Yukthiya” to combat the “drug menace.” As of May 2024, over 100,000 people had been arrested, in many cases without any apparent evidence. The UN reported numerous allegations of torture and ill treatment and said that hundreds were sent for detention without trial in military-run “rehabilitation” centers, where there were longstanding allegations of abuse.