43 Years Since Black July: The Accountability Gap Revisited
Black July remains one of the darkest chapters in Sri Lanka’s post-independence history. Every year, SLC commemorates July 1983, when the Sri Lankan state committed a 7-day anti-Tamil pogrom, killing around 3,000 Tamil civilians and injuring, raping, and forcibly displacing thousands more. In its 2023 Black July report, SLC established that not one single perpetrator was held accountable. What has changed since then?
Three years later, the political context has changed. Since its emergence in 2024, the National People’s Power (NPP), has used the rhetoric of reform and expressed commitments to improve governance and to abolish the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA). For instance, the NPP’s English election manifesto promised the “abolition of all oppressive acts, including the PTA”, and to ensure the “civil rights of people in all parts of the country.”
Accordingly, it remains important to address why the PTA has not yet been abolished and why the Sinhala and English versions of the manifesto differ in mentioning it. In the Sinhala version of the manifesto, the same PTA abolition statement could not be found. Additionally, and while the NPP had gained strong Tamil support during the election, in 2025 there was no official statement commemorating Black July or acknowledging it. Moreover, to date no investigations have been conducted and no prosecutions pursued to hold the perpetrators of Black July accountable. Three years on, the SLC also remains concerned about restrictions on commemoration and the continued use of the PTA in cases involving Tamil expression. It remains to be seen what will happen this year…
The lack of commemoration has not just been accompanied by an absence of the acknowledgement and accountability that are essential for reconciliation. It has also been obstructed, as President Dissanayake has not committed the government to providing protection for commemorative events, nor issued any directive ensuring non-interference by the security forces. For instance, Tamil commemoration and freedom of expression continued to face interference and intimidation under President Dissanayake. In its August 2025 report on Sri Lanka, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights found that, while the government had opened some space for memorialisation, it continued to use the PTA, particularly to detain those working on accountability for enforced disappearances. For instance, journalist Kumanan Kanapathipillai was summoned by the Counterterrorism Investigation Division following a complaint by military intelligence about his coverage of protests and commemorations by the war-affected community. The government has also used the PTA oppressively, by arresting Tamil rapper, Sangeethsan Ganeskumar, on June 2nd, 2026, as a result of a video he posted that the police alleged “glorified” the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The police have also summoned the leaders of the Polikandi Fishermen’s Association in Jaffna after residents raised red-and-yellow flags (associated with the LTTE), demanding banners be taken down.
A Lingering Accountability Gap
One of SLC’s key findings in 2023 was that restrictions on commemoration cannot be viewed in isolation. Instead, they must be perceived as part of a broader accountability gap: past violence is deliberately unaddressed, limiting how it is remembered. Three years later, SLC notes that the accountability gap remains wide open.
The intimidation of civil society actors, arbitrary arrests, and absence of accountability for Black July after 43 years remain highly alarming.
In 2023, our report’s key recommendations to the Sri Lankan government included:
– Any alleged perpetrators known to police or other authorities and against whom there is strong evidence, if still alive, to be prosecuted.
– The financial compensation proposed by the 2002 Commission of Inquiry must be properly distributed to all victims and their descendants.
– Reparative justice in the form of infrastructural development, in accordance with local demands and desires, to be carried out in areas and communities most affected by the rioting.
Three years on, each of these recommendations remains unmet, and therefore unchanged. In light of unchanged circumstances since 2023, we additionally call on the Sri Lankan government to:
– Disclose and preserve state archives relating to Black July.
– Urgently clarify both the discrepancy between the English and Sinhala versions of the manifesto, and the delay in abolishing the PTA.
– Establish a clear reparations framework that combines financial compensation and psychological intervention to all those who suffered the repercussions of Black July.
– Introduce explicit safeguards against the criminalisation of Tamil cultural, artistic, and commemorative expression, ending the use of the PTA against musicians, writers, and performers.
We also re-emphasise our previous recommendations that UN member states call on the Sri Lankan government to:
– Repeal the PTA and revoke the proposed Anti-Terrorism Act, ensuring that all anti-terror legislation adheres to international standards.
– Establish independent mechanisms with prosecutorial powers to hold the police, armed forces and government departments to account for human rights abuses.
– Incorporate Black July and other root causes of the ethnic conflict into public education in Sinhala-, Tamil-, and English-medium schools.
– Work with the Tamil community and international experts to find a real political solution to the ethnic conflict which is acceptable to all ethnic groups on the island.
While there has been a political change in 2024, and some shifts in the rhetoric towards reparations, accountability and justice remain absent and Black July continues to be one of the clearest illustrations of Sri Lanka’s persistent accountability gap.
