Sri Lankan Tamils and Human Rights

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Tuesday 5th December 2023 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Edward. I congratulate the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Martyn Day) on securing the debate and on setting the scene so very well. His leading of the debate has helped us all to participate.

Human rights in Sri Lanka have continually drawn my attention during my time as a Member of Parliament. Unfortunately, the human rights violations of the Sri Lankan civil war have yet to be properly addressed by the Sri Lankan Government, and no perpetrators have been brought to justice. Some of those perpetrators continue to hold governmental positions, while reform efforts have had little effect. The Tamil population continue to suffer under governmental restrictions and human rights violations, including disappearances and death.

These issues and many others have been well documented by the United Nations. Clearly, there is a need for reform, which is what we are all asking for—we are asking for our Minister and our Government to be very active. The European Union helped to cement some changes during its talks. However, the amendments to the Prevention of Terrorism Act have done little to improve the human rights situation for the Tamils and other affected parties.

I want to focus on the Prevention of Terrorism Act and its effects on Tamil minority religious communities. There has been reference to religious minorities, and I will give some examples of minorities that are suffering. Freedom of religion or belief is a vital component of the human rights landscape throughout the world. FORB and other human rights are intrinsically intertwined—two fingers rolled over each other. Human rights and persecution of religious belief march hand in hand.

With the oppression of one human right, all others suffer. I am chair of the all-party parliamentary group for international freedom of religion or belief, so I want to talk about that. The PTA has been a tool of the Sri Lankan Government to wrongfully detain and oppress political, cultural and religious outliers since its inception in 1979. Of course, a country has the right and duty to protect its citizens against terrorism and violence. It does not, however, have the right to wrongfully imprison its own citizens without just cause, nor should it allow any violations of human rights.

The environment of fear and oppression that the PTA has helped to form leads to divisive rhetoric, often grouping together minority populations, with the Tamil population centred in the north as a common target. This phenomenon is compounded by the fact that minority religious populations are represented in the Tamil population at a much higher rate. These sociological aspects of the situation are important to note because they contribute strongly to the political and cultural dynamic of the region. Violence directed against religious groups, including the Easter Sunday attacks of 2019, are red flag markers of this aspect of the situation. Other religious minorities are targeted.

I have had a chance to meet human rights campaigners working on the ground in Sri Lanka. They have described the situation of minority religious groups, including Hindus, Christians and Muslims, as one of fear and bureaucratic oppression. New laws make the building of religious structures more difficult, which is particularly harmful for members of minority religions, many of whom tend to come from less prosperous socioeconomic backgrounds.

Local bureaucracy can prove to be a major stumbling block for minority religious communities, many members of which are Tamil. Police, members of nationalist Buddhist groups and others cause difficulties and harass worshippers, often leading to supervision. Covid-19 protection laws, which required forced cremations for all burials, forced Muslims to violate Islamic religious observance standards—the core of their beliefs. Thankfully, that policy has come to an end, but other measures remain in place for the oppression of Muslim community members.

According to the 2022 report on Sri Lanka by the United States Centre for Religious Freedom, Hindu and Muslim sites in the predominantly Tamil Northern province have been destroyed under the oversight of Government agencies, creating space for the building of Buddhist temples. The report notes that that practice is one of the biggest impediments to religious freedom in the Northern province. So what can the UK Government do? What can our Minister do? We have seen that bilateral talks can be effective in promoting change, but only to a limited extent. Sri Lanka’s economic dependence on the European market was a key point in its PTA reform process. Perhaps that pressure could be applied again.

However, those reforms are not adequate to protect human rights in the country. A new strategy is needed, combining bilateral and multilateral efforts. The same is true for international organisations such as the UN. The UK is a leader in human rights advocacy worldwide; let us use that position to take a stand for the rights of our brothers and sisters in Sri Lanka, for whom we all are speaking here today. When international pressure is applied, states take note. I have seen that happen throughout the world, and again we ask our Minister and our Government to do the same.

In conclusion, it is very important to speak on this topic. Discussions such as these are a vital part of the UK’s response to injustice and suffering throughout the world. It is encouraging to see debates like today’s this week and next; we note the 75th anniversaries of the universal declaration on human rights and the convention on the prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide. It is very clear to me that genocide is taking place against the Tamil population, ethnic minorities, and religious groups to such an extent that many of the people—indeed, the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) referred to some people from his constituency who went to look for members of their community or families and could not find them. There is an injustice to be addressed, so I hope that those commemorations inspire an increased effort to promote human rights domestically and throughout the world.

I very much look forward to what the Minister will say, and also to the two shadow Ministers—the hon. Members for Glasgow North East (Anne McLaughlin) and for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West)—who I know will encapsulate all of the things that we wish to see. What we really want to see is justice, and, at this moment in time, we do not see that.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (Leo Docherty)]

It is a pleasure to be here. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Martyn Day) for securing this important debate. My right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Anne-Marie Trevelyan), who is the Minister of State responsible for the Indo-Pacific region, would have answered this debate, but she is on a plane to Australia; it is therefore my pleasure to be here in her place. I am grateful for all the powerful and moving contributions from right hon. and hon. Members. I will try to cover the points that they made and set out the Government’s position.

The UK Government pay close attention to the human rights situation in Sri Lanka, especially for the many Tamils. The perils of that situation have been movingly and powerfully described by all Members. I particularly note the interest of the of the all-party parliamentary group on Sri Lanka, including the chair and other members, and I am grateful for their contributions. Sri Lanka is one of 32 FCDO human rights priority countries, in recognition of our ongoing human rights concerns in a number of areas, including the rights of people from minority groups.

Hon. Members will know that the continuing marginalisation and oppression of Tamil communities follows many years of racial and religious tensions in the country, which culminated in the civil war; that was described in very clear terms this afternoon. It is important to recognise that a number of different communities, including Tamils, who predominantly reside in the north and east of the country, continue to face marginalisation by state authorities. There have been increasing numbers of land seizures and disputes that have sometimes centred around religious sites, such as the Ayyanar Hindu temple in Mullaitivu. That clearly has troubling implications for freedom of religion or belief. More recently, we are clear that there has been state-sponsored settlement of traditional pasture land in Batticaloa, which threats the livelihoods of local farmers.

There have been several incidents of heavy-handed policing of peaceful protests and commemorations, and there is ongoing surveillance and intimidation by state security forces in the north and east of the country. That particularly focuses on civil society activists and Tamil communities affected by the war, including former combatants and the families of the disappeared. Those events have heightened communal tensions and continue to stoke perceptions of forced displacement from traditionally Tamil areas.

A running theme of the debate has been the Prevention of Terrorism Act, which was described in stark terms by a number of hon. Members. The UK Government remain concerned about the ongoing use of the Act, despite the Sri Lankan Government’s long-standing commitment to replace it with a version that meets their international obligations. It continues to be used—indeed, it was used as recently as last week. We continue to call on the Government of Sri Lanka to deliver on their promises and live up to their international obligations, and we acknowledge the concerns laid out this afternoon with regard to the PTA legislation.

For this Government, promoting human rights, reconciliation, justice and accountability is a key strand of our policy towards Sri Lanka. My right hon. Friend the Minister of State for the Indo-Pacific visited Sri Lanka in October, when she met the President, Foreign Minister and Justice Minister. She also met the Governor of the Northern province, as well as Tamil representatives and civil society activists in Colombo and Jaffna. She visited community projects, including a de-mining project run by the HALO Trust and paid for by British assistance.

[Jim Shannon]

This is a side issue, but the Minister mentioned everything the Government are doing. May I gently suggest that human rights and the persecution of Christians and so on form an integral part of any discussions on economic ties—whether that is banking, more business or whatever it might be—and that those economic ties are conditional on those issues?

[Leo Docherty]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point, and the role of the trade envoy was mentioned this afternoon. We are clear that human rights and trade discussions go alongside each other; they are not mutually exclusive, and that is a perfectly reasonable suggestion.

On her visit, my right hon. Friend raised with the Sri Lankan Government the need for progress on human rights for all communities in Sri Lanka, and for justice and accountability for violations and abuses committed during and following the armed conflict. As has been mentioned, we recognise that other communities in Sri Lanka, including Muslims as well as Tamils, face discrimination, harassment and a lack of justice.

In addition to our face-to-face diplomacy, the UK Government have an £11 million programme that supports human rights and reconciliation in Sri Lanka. We have specific projects and programmes that help to tackle the legacy of the conflict, support civil society and democratic processes, promote gender equality, and reduce inter-community tensions. We have been a leading member of the core group of countries that work to improve human rights, justice and accountability in Sri Lanka, and we will continue to be in that core group.

We have worked in the UN human rights system to raise concerns and build international support to strengthen human rights, and we used our statement to the UN Human Rights Council in September to highlight the vital need to respect freedom of religion or belief and freedoms of expression and association in Sri Lanka. We also pressed for progress on justice, accountability and reconciliation. The UK delegation led work on the most recent UN Human Rights Council resolution on Sri Lanka, which the chair of the APPG asked about, and we will continue to use that as a tool to argue for progress.