Rights defenders in North-East labelled as terrorists - UN Special Rapporteur Mary Lawlor
A forthcoming United Nations Human Rights Council report has highlighted the systematic targeting of human rights defenders (HRDs) in Sri Lanka’s Northern and Eastern provinces, where activists have been subjected to violence, surveillance, and labelled as “terrorists”.
The report, titled Out of Sight: Human Rights Defenders Working in Isolated, Remote & Rural Contexts, has been compiled by UN Special Rapporteur Mary Lawlor and will be presented before the UN Human Rights Council on 5 March 2025.
The Special Rapporteur has prioritised the most serious violations against human rights defenders, including threats, killings, enforced disappearances, torture, and long-term detention. The report specifically draws attention to the plight of human rights defenders in the Tamil North-East, where activists face disproportionate levels of persecution.
It states:
“The Special Rapporteur has also received information that, in Sri Lanka, defenders working in the conflict-affected North and East face disproportionate violence, surveillance and labelling as terrorists, and that many women human rights defenders have been labelled as anti-State and have faced violence, stigmatisation, and attacks during peaceful protests.”
The report, presented under the agenda of the Promotion and Protection of All Human Rights—Civil, Political, Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, Including the Right to Development, highlights how human rights defenders across the world continue to face state-backed intimidation, harassment, and violence.
In Sri Lanka, this includes efforts to silence Tamil activists who advocate for justice, accountability, and human rights in a region still suffering the consequences of war and state repression.
The report further underscores the role of governments, corporations, intergovernmental bodies, and non-state armed groups in enabling or actively participating in these abuses. It highlights how corporations linked to land grabs, environmental destruction, and resource extraction have facilitated attacks against HRDs resisting harmful practices. International financial institutions (IFIs) are also cited for their role in financing projects that displace vulnerable communities while failing to protect activists.
For Tamil activists, the findings of this report reflect a long-standing pattern of state repression. Human rights defenders, particularly Tamil women, have been at the forefront of protests demanding justice for enforced disappearances, militarisation, and war crimes, only to be met with harassment, threats, and physical attacks.
Despite the risks, Tamil activists continue to demand accountability for the state’s past and ongoing crimes.