CAT/C/71/D/754/2016
day of the election was to check voter identification to ensure that they originated from the
given area. He stopped between 10 and 20 people from voting because they had no
identification. Two “thugs” entered the polling station and attacked him, upon which security
guards ejected them. The complainant then received threatening phone calls, about which he
complained to the police. As far as he is aware, the police did nothing with the complaint.
Testimonies from community members and leaders confirm the events.
2.2
Around two days later, the complainant received more threatening calls and after a
while, he did not return home and did not answer his phone. Out of fear, he stayed with
friends. On 14 February 2012, he was followed by a white van. Aware that Tamils were being
abducted in white vans and disappearing, he decided to leave Sri Lanka.
2.3
He arrived in Australia on 1 July 2012 and applied for a protection visa on 23
November 2012. On 5 August 2013, a delegate from the Minister for Immigration and
Citizenship denied his application. The Refugee Review Tribunal upheld the decision on 15
April 2015. The complainant’s appeals to the Federal Circuit Court and the Federal Court of
Australia were dismissed on 7 February 2015 and 4 April 2016, respectively. His application
for intervention by the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship was refused on 22 April
2016.
Complaint
3.1
The complainant claims to have undergone torture in Sri Lanka because he received
death threats. He further claims that, upon return to Sri Lanka, he will suffer torture at the
hands of the Criminal Investigation Department and the guards of the Negombo Prison,
where he will be detained and charged under the Immigrants and Emigrants Act owing to his
illegal departure from Sri Lanka.1 Persons who have left Sri Lanka illegally and failed asylum
seekers are immediately detected and taken into custody upon arrival at the Colombo airport.
The complainant would be held longer and subjected to closer scrutiny than most returnees
owing to his Tamil ethnicity and adherence to Islam. His involvement with the election
violence could also come to light. His Tamil ethnicity and status as a failed asylum seeker
would also be a reason for the Sri Lankan authorities to impute to the complainant support of
the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and to harm him on this ground. The detention
conditions in the Negombo Prison are overcrowded, unsanitary and unhygienic, amounting
to torture and inhuman, cruel and degrading treatment and punishment. 2
3.2
The fact that the Sri Lankan authorities did not act on the complainant’s police
complaint against the violent harassment at the polling booth implies that the aggressors are
politically well-connected. Internal relocation is not an option for people who have defied
politically powerful people in Sri Lanka, as their reach is national.
3.3
The complainant refers to publicly available information on human rights violations
in Sri Lanka, including torture and white van abductions following election violence. 3 The
information referred to includes concluding observations of the Committee, in which it
expressed serious concern about the continued and consistent allegations of widespread use
of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of suspects in police custody, and
about reports that suggested that torture and ill-treatment perpetrated by State actors, both
the military and the police, had continued in many parts of the country after the conflict ended
in May 2009, and were still occurring in 2011.4 Anyone apprehended by the Sri Lankan
1
2
3
4
2
Edmund Rice Centre, “Australian sponsored torture in Sri Lanka? The unforeseen consequences of
supporting a brutal regime to stop the boats at any cost”, 12 August 2015; Sri Lanka, Department of
Foreign Affairs and Trade report to the Refugee Review Tribunal, No. 1478, 28 February 2013;
Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, “Sri Lanka: information on the treatment of Tamil
returnees to Sri Lanka, including failed refugee applicants; repercussions, upon return, for not having
proper government authorization to leave the country, such as a passport” (LKA103815.E), 22 August
2011.
Edmund Rice Centre, “Australian sponsored torture in Sri Lanka?”.
Ibid.; International Truth and Justice Project Sri Lanka, “Silenced: survivors of torture and sexual
violence in 2015”, January 2016; Freedom from Torture, “Tainted peace: torture in Sri Lanka since
May 2009”, August 2015; and Human Rights Watch, “Country summary: Sri Lanka”, January 2015.
CAT/C/LKA/CO/3-4, para. 6.