Thursday, September 27, 2012

Britain's shameful complicity in Sri Lanka's torture...

When it first emerged that Britain had knowingly allowed terrorist suspects to be illegally rendered to third party states to be tortured in the early half of the last decade the story made national headlines. How could Britain, a supposedly liberal democracy and bastion of human rights, deliberately allow someone to be transported towards regimes they knew would abuse them?

Sadly we’re still doing it to this day. The only people that dispute the allegation that torture is rampant in Sri Lanka is the country’s notoriously bullish government who - after the defeat of the Tamil Tiger insurgency in 2009 – feel both impervious and above international law.

Human rights groups, the UN, scores of survivors and even the Foreign Office know torture is common place. Yet our Border Agency is still determined to continue kicking out as many people it can – including those who fled Sri Lanka convinced their lives are in danger.

Every time a new charter flight is announced (the media are usually tipped off by lawyers because the government never comments until the planes have landed) we’re told that we shouldn’t worry because Britain only deports people they know will not be at risk of ill treatment.

It’s a nice line but it’s completely false. As this report shows the government does very little to check up on the welfare of returnees once the leave the arrivals hall at Bandaranaike International. Full story...

Related posts:
  1. UK deports 60 Tamils to Sri Lanka to face torture...
  2. Hundreds of Tamil refugees in Britain sent back to Sri Lanka to face torture...
  3. In post-war Sri Lanka, one person disappears every five days...
  4. Britain kicks out 36 Tamil asylum seekers back to Sri Lanka...
  5. UN probe demanded after Tamil deaths in Sri Lanka prison...
  6. Sri Lanka's killing fields 2. Unpunished war crimes. (Graphic)
  7. Sri Lanka's killing fields (Graphic)
  8. Sri Lanka: A nightmare for Tamils...
  9. Thousands missing in Sri Lanka as people continue to disappear...

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