SL ‘special agents’ ransack human rights activist's apartment in Colombo

[TamilNet, Friday, 30 December 2011, 02:25 GMT]
Sri Lankan investigation officers claiming to be from the ‘Special Unit’ on Wednesday evening ransacked an apartment where a Tamil human rights activist from the East was residing in Colombo. The agents clad in civil and uniform entered the room of the human rights activist around 10:00 p.m. and took away documents and files without mentioning the intention of the action and without providing any list of what they have taken from the apartment, informed sources said. The Human Rights activist, who was formerly a progamme officer of a Belgium-based international organisation, was living in the apartment with his Sinhala room mate. The Sinhala friend was taken away by the investigating officers, detained for almost 20 hours and harrassed, informed NGO sources in Colombo told TamilNet Thursday.

The ‘Special Units’ attached to Sri Lankan Defence Ministry think that data on human rights abuses in the island is being collected through current or former personnel attached to the international organisations, a Sinhala Human Rights activist in Colombo told TamilNet.

Colombo government deploys various techniques to limit the access of certain international NGOs, while the employees from the island, are harrassed by ransack actions and other forms of intimidations, the activist said while alerting journalists in Colombo and diplomats attached to various missions in Colombo on the recent incident.

The released Sinhalese room-mate has declined to talk to media.