Primary EvidenceVerbatim Quotes & Figures

• “The structural conditions that led to past violations persist.”
• “Routine use of torture and other forms of ill-treatment, with multiple cases of deaths in police custody and a lack of effective investigation into these cases.”
• “The surveillance apparatus, especially in the north and east, has remained largely intact, with minimal oversight.”

Quotations as recorded in HRW World Report 2026 — Sri Lanka and OHCHR press briefing, 13 January 2026.

• “Sri Lanka needs a clear roadmap for accountability and reform.”

The Committee welcomed the new Sri Lankan law on enforced disappearance but asked the State about reports of arbitrary detentions and intimidation of victims' families — language that mirrors families-of-the-disappeared testimony from the North-East roadside protests.

• “President Anura Kumara Dissanayake's government made some efforts to stabilize the economy and address inequality in access to public services, but made little progress in implementing human rights commitments.”
• “Despite rhetoric of 'national reconciliation,' the Dissanayake government has done little to build trust with the Tamil and Muslim communities.”
• “Police and intelligence agencies continue to monitor and intimidate the families of victims who campaign for justice, as well as human rights defenders and other members of civil society.”
• “The NGO Secretariat, responsible for regulating civil society organizations, remains part of the Ministry of Public Security, enhancing the risk that human rights defenders would be treated as a threat.”
• “Over several years at least 20 mass graves have been discovered throughout Sri Lanka, often by accident during construction work. In a fresh investigation of a mass grave at Chemmani, near Jaffna, the remains of over 200 people, including children, were discovered.”
• “Trincomalee witness to the UN Sri Lanka Accountability Project: 'The monitoring is tighter now. Sometimes [police] even approach our children to get information about us. That is a type of threat.'”

• “Francis Croos, Mullikulam village elder: 'Now there is no war. It's now peacetime. So why can't we go back home?'”
• “Military occupation of public and private property is a cruel legacy of the nearly three-decade civil war in Sri Lanka that ended in May 2009.”
• “The military … not only established barracks, but has used the land for agriculture, tourism, and other commercial ventures.”
• “In at least one location, the Sirisena government has actually moved backward, allowing the military to acquire land in a conflict-affected area.”

• “World military expenditure rose to $2,718 billion in 2024 — the 9.4 per cent increase in 2024 was the steepest year-on-year rise since at least 1988.”
• “The global military burden — the share of the world's GDP devoted to military expenditure — increased to 2.5 per cent in 2024.”
• “Average military expenditure as a share of government expenditure rose to 7.1 per cent in 2024 and world military spending per person was the highest since 1990, at $334.”

The SIPRI Sri Lanka time series (1949–2025) is the canonical reference for the country's military burden curve.

Outstanding purchases and loans (31 March 2026): SDR 1,761.9 million; quota SDR 578.8 million; 18 arrangements since membership. Combined Fifth and Sixth EFF reviews, Staff-Level Agreement reached 9 April 2026.

The single most important live fiscal-cum-rights datapoint: a March 2025 gazette covering 5,941 acres is live operational evidence that land conversion is ongoing, not historical.

Statutory instrument made under the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act 2018. Allows the UK to designate individuals for involvement in serious human-rights violations.

67 pp, 759 KB. The UK Government's own working document for asylum decisions — strongest internal-UK evidence that HM Government keeps a rolling brief on this issue.

Live parliamentary record that the issue is on the order paper of the United Kingdom — parliamentary, not fringe.

A second sovereign-government voice (alongside the UK CPIN and FCDO HR Report) recognising ongoing concerns.

Together with Operation Banner (UK MoD, 2006) this proves a Western democracy can publicly evaluate, and then deliberately wind down, a long internal military deployment.

Operationalised demilitarisation, decommissioning of GAM weapons, and the EU/ASEAN Aceh Monitoring Mission.

Both RA 11054 and the 2014 Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro exist as primary law — neither is hypothetical.