Tamil suspects' rights violated

SRI Lanka should end the indefinite detention of some of the 11,000 people held in its custody for suspected links with the Tamil Tiger rebels, a leading rights group said Tuesday.

A report by New-York based Human Rights Watch said the government should identify which detainees with suspected rebel links present a genuine threat and release the rest. Sri Lanka's human rights minister said he had not seen the report, and would respond to it later.

The suspects were detained during and after the Sri Lankan military's final offensive against the Tamil rebels, which ended with the rebel group's defeat in May and brought to a close decades of civil war. 'The government has denied detainees the right to be informed of specific reasons for their arrest, to challenge the lawfulness of the detention before an independent judicial authority, and to have access to legal counsel and family members,' the group said.

At the end of the war more than a quarter million Tamils were placed into government-run camps to be screened for rebel ties as their home villages were cleared of mines. Some 100,000 civilians still live in those camps. Those with suspected Tiger ties are held in separate facilities the government calls 'rehabilitation centers.'

The group also said it was concerned because a lack of information about the fate of detainees raised the possibility that some may have been tortured or mistreated or may have 'disappeared.' Meanwhile, another rights group called on the government to end what it called a crackdown on opposition supporters, political activists and journalists that began after last month's presidential election.

Amnesty International said Monday that journalists have disappeared, been arrested or threatened with death and opposition supporters harassed since the Jan 26 election. The group said it has received a list of 56 journalists who face serious threats, including some working for state-run media institutions.