Washington, April 13 (Agency) The US State Department’s human rights report for 2021 has cited reports of members of Sri Lankan security forces committing numerous abuses but the government did not take any significant step to address the violations. The annual reports said, “Parliament passed the 20th Amendment to the constitution in October 2020. Opposition political leaders and civil society groups widely criticized the amendment for its broad expansion of executive authority that activists said would undermine the independence of the judiciary and independent state institutions, such as the Human Rights Commission and the Election Commission, by granting the president sole authority to make appointments to these bodies with parliament afforded only a consultative role.”
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday released the State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor published its annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2021. The report said that lack of accountability for conflict-era abuses persisted, particularly regarding government officials, military, paramilitary, police, and other security-sector officials implicated and, in some cases, convicted of killing political opponents, journalists, and private citizens. While lauding that there were no reports of disappearances by or on behalf of government authorities, the report stated that the disappearances during the war and its aftermath have remained unresolved. On inhuman punishment in the country, the report said that the constitution and law prohibit such practices, but authorities reportedly employed them.