Despite an independent police commission in place, local officers continue to harass and torture innocent victims, the Asian Legal Resource Centre (ALRC) said Wednesday.
In its second report on torture by the police in Sri Lanka, titled Endemic torture and the collapse of policing in Sri Lanka, the report describes 31 recent cases of torture or killing by the police of 29 police stations in Sri Lanka, involving 46 victims, all of whom appear to have been innocents.
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rnThe 100-page report also contains extensive discussion of the institutional collapse behind these acts, including submissions by ALRC and the World Organisation Against Torture to the UN Committee on Human Rights, and a proposed police complaints procedure submitted by ALRC to the National Police Commission.rn
rn"What we are emphasising in this second report is that the gruesome torture still being practiced in police stations across Sri Lanka indicates the almost total breakdown in policing in the country," remarks Basil Fernando, E