The report for 2011 released by Foreign Secretary William Hague on Monday noted that disappearances and abductions continued in 2011 with a sharp rise in the number of disappearances towards the end of the year.
In December, two political activists travelling in the North had disappeared. There was almost no progress in resolving past cases of disappearances, including that of cartoonist Prageeth Ekneligoda who went missing in 2010.
The report recalled that the Sri Lankan
government’s own Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) had
complained about the lack of investigations and had pointed out that in
some cases, the police had refused to register any complaints.
The
British report pointed out that little or nothing had been done to
reduce the military presence in the Northern Province even though the
LLRC had said that extensive military presence was often making the
place “unsafe” for women.
An International Crisis Group (ICG) report had also expressed concern over women’s security in the North and East.
Painting
a grim picture of women’s empowerment in Sri Lanka, the British report
said that the country had slipped from the 16th to 31st rank in the
Global Gender Index of the World Economic Forum.
Rights Activists Endangered
As
regards the safety of human rights activists, the Foreign Office report
said the environment for rights defenders in Lanka was difficult
throughout 2011.
On December 10, 2011 a group of 42 rights
activists from South Sri Lanka were prevented from participating in a
Human Rights Day rally in Jaffna.
On December 9, 2011 two Tamil
rights activists, Lalith Kumar Weeraraj and Kugan Muruganandan, had dis-
appeared while visiting Jaffna.
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