The UN human rights office has told the Human Rights Council that Sri Lanka’s government has pledged to address long-standing rights concerns but that efforts to secure truth, justice and reconciliation “risk being stalled and the momentum for transformative change being lost.”
The assessment appears in the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) report going before the Council’s 63rd session in Geneva, which opens on Monday. The report covers October 2025 to July 2026, NewsFirst reported.
OHCHR notes that Sri Lanka spent the review period absorbing several shocks at once — Cyclone Ditwah, economic pressure from external conditions and the effects of global conflicts — and says these diverted resources and political attention away from reform and accountability work.
Credit given, and withheld
The report acknowledges that the government elected in late 2024 committed to combating corruption, establishing an independent public prosecutor’s office, addressing accountability for the 2019 Easter Sunday attacks and repealing the Prevention of Terrorism Act. In several of those areas, it says, meaningful reform has yet to materialise.
On the Easter attacks, OHCHR records substantial investigative and judicial movement: the arrest of former State Intelligence Service director Suresh Sallay, travel restrictions imposed on former president Gotabaya Rajapaksa and two former intelligence officers, and the conviction and sentencing of former Inspector General of Police Pujith Jayasundara and former defence secretary Hemasiri Fernando. It says concerns nonetheless remain over due process, public access to proceedings and adherence to international fair trial standards.
Eight matters are treated as emblematic: the 2006 disappearance of Eastern University Vice Chancellor Ravindranath, the murder of MP Nadarajah Raviraj, the Action Contre La Faim aid worker massacre, the 2010 disappearance of journalist Prageeth Ekneligoda, enforced disappearances generally, the Chemmani-Sithuppaththi mass grave, conflict-related sexual violence, and the Easter attacks.
High Commissioner Volker Türk welcomed the Attorney-General’s decision to indict former Eastern Province chief minister Sivanesathurai Chandrakathan, known as Pillayan, and three others over the Ravindranath case, but called it “regrettable that many other serious emblematic cases remain stalled for years, including the killing of 17 Action Contre La Faim aid workers in Muttur 20 years ago.”
Custody deaths, surveillance and the PTA
Beyond the material NewsFirst carried, OHCHR’s own statement sets out figures from the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka: 602 cases of torture and ill-treatment in 2025 and 138 by April 2026, alongside 18 deaths in custody last year and three more by April. It cites a 40-year-old inmate held on a minor drug offence who died at Welikada Prison on 3 May, allegedly after severe beatings.
The report also points to July’s Negombo Prison riot as evidence of the urgency of prison reform, and to at least 16 allegations of surveillance of civil society actors, activists and journalists — a “clear and continuing pattern of state surveillance, intimidation and reprisals,” it says, in which people are questioned about travel to Geneva and engagement with UN human rights processes.
Türk called for a moratorium on the PTA pending its repeal, the release of long-term detainees held under it, the exclusion of anyone credibly accused of violations from senior government, security or diplomatic posts, support for victims’ memorialisation, and the release of military-occupied land.
“This Government still has an opportunity to turn the tide on decades of abuse of executive power, repressive laws and custodial violence, and entrenched impunity,” he said.
Discrepancies and context
OHCHR puts the Negombo riot toll at at least 32 deaths; Sri Lankan reporting in July put it at 31. NewsFirst renders the Eastern University vice chancellor’s name “Sivasubramaniam Raveendranath”; OHCHR writes “Subramanian Ravindranath,” and our archive uses Ravindranath more often. Neither difference is explained by either source.
The report reaches Geneva days after Human Rights Watch found that prosecutions for grave abuses remain virtually nonexistent, and after Foreign Minister Vijitha Herath said Colombo had given the Council a detailed response on its judicial reforms.
Not reported
Neither source names the resolution under which the report is submitted, gives a date or time slot for the Sri Lanka item within the month-long session, or says whether Sri Lanka will send a delegation or exercise a right of reply. No government response had been reported at the time of writing, and no other verified Sri Lankan newsroom had carried the report’s contents.
