UN urges Sri Lanka to match anti-corruption drive with stronger action on rights abuses
September 06, Colombo (LNW): The United Nations has welcomed Sri Lanka’s renewed efforts to tackle corruption but warned that the Government must show the same determination in confronting alleged human rights violations and the culture of impunity that has persisted for decades.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk, presenting his latest assessment to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, said the administration of President Anura Kumara Dissanayake had taken encouraging steps in several corruption and long-running criminal cases. However, he said reports of torture, custodial deaths and arbitrary detention demonstrated that serious problems remained unresolved.
The UN assessment, covering developments from October 2025 to July 2026, points to investigations and arrests involving politically sensitive cases, including alleged political killings, enforced disappearances and the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings.
Türk acknowledged that the Government had faced an exceptionally difficult period, including the devastation caused by Cyclone Ditwah, which claimed around 650 lives, as well as the economic strain created by rising global energy costs.
Despite those pressures, he said Sri Lanka could not afford to lose momentum on accountability and institutional reform.
Figures compiled by the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka indicate the continuing scale of custodial abuse. The commission recorded 602 complaints involving torture or ill-treatment during 2025, followed by another 138 cases by April 2026. It also documented 18 deaths in custody last year and three more during the first four months of this year.
One of the reported cases involved a 40-year-old prisoner held over a minor drug-related offence who died at Welikada Prison in Colombo on 3 May. Allegations have been made that he suffered serious beatings before his death.
The UN chief said the Government had an opportunity to break with a longstanding pattern involving excessive executive power, restrictive legislation, violence in detention facilities and failures to hold perpetrators accountable.
He also criticised the continued use of Sri Lanka’s Prevention of Terrorism Act, arguing that its application had contributed to arbitrary arrests and lengthy periods of detention without formal charges. Türk called for a moratorium on its use while the legislation remains in force and urged authorities to consider releasing people who have spent prolonged periods in detention under the law.
Concerns were also raised over the treatment of journalists, activists and civil society organisations. According to the UN report, at least 16 allegations of surveillance involving such individuals were brought to the attention of the UN Human Rights Office.
The report described an ongoing pattern of surveillance, intimidation and reprisals allegedly involving military and intelligence personnel, as well as officers attached to the Criminal Investigation Department and the Terrorism Investigation Division. Those targeted were reportedly questioned about overseas travel, contacts with UN human rights mechanisms, organisational links, funding and involvement in protests or commemorative activities.
Prison conditions were another major concern. The violence at Negombo Prison in July, in which at least 32 people were killed, was cited as evidence of the urgent need to address entrenched weaknesses within the prison system, including severe overcrowding.
Although the Government has continued to speak out against racism and advocate national unity, the UN warned that progress towards truth, justice and reconciliation could lose momentum without concrete institutional action.
Türk particularly highlighted the lack of progress in investigating and prosecuting serious violations allegedly committed during Sri Lanka’s more than two-decade armed conflict. He called for credible accountability for alleged international crimes committed by all sides.
The recent decision by the Attorney-General to indict former Eastern Province Chief Minister Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan, commonly known as Pillayan, along with three others over the 2006 abduction and killing of former Eastern University Vice-Chancellor Professor Sivasubramaniam Raveendranath was noted as a significant development.
However, Türk said many other emblematic cases had remained unresolved for years. Among them is the 2006 killing of 17 aid workers from Action Contre La Faim in Muttur, a case that remains without a satisfactory conclusion two decades later.
The High Commissioner urged Colombo to intensify efforts on reconciliation and accountability rather than allowing difficult cases to remain indefinitely stalled. He also called for greater protection and recognition of victims, including support for initiatives allowing communities to commemorate those who died or disappeared.
In addition, the UN called for the release of land still occupied by the military and for people facing credible allegations of serious human rights violations to be kept out of senior government, security and diplomatic positions until those allegations have been properly investigated and resolved.
For the Dissanayake administration, the message from the UN is therefore twofold: the Government’s anti-corruption campaign has created an opportunity to demonstrate a new approach to accountability, but lasting political change will depend on extending that principle to abuses committed by state institutions and security forces.
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