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Attack on Rohingya refugees is an attempt to cover up rape by police officer - CHR

Sri Lanka's Center for Human Rights and Research (CHR) has made a complaint to the Ministry of Law and Order that the storming of a UN safe house where 31 Rohingya refugees were sheltering was an attempt to cover up the rape of a Rohingya refugee by a Sri Lankan police officer by removing the witness from the country. 

“People have been incited by a perpetrator of sexual violence in order to remove witness from Sri Lanka,” CHR Executive Director Rajith Keerthi Tennekoon, was quoted by JDS as saying. 

JDS reported: 

"According to information revealed in court the police officer sexually attacked a young refugee in April 2017 while being held in the police immigration detention center. After the perpetrator was identified by the victim in court, the Nugegoda Magistrate has remanded the suspected police officer on 10 July.

CHR has also brought to the notice of the Law and Order Ministry that one of the men leading the mob was in violation of strict bail conditions. JDS has seen a copy of a complaint made by Attorney at law Nizam Shainaz, which shows that Sinhala extremist Dan Priyasad has violated sanctions imposed by courts in December 2016 when he was released after police arrested him for mob violence."

In June, the Department of Immigration and Emigration confirmed they had received a complaint by a 21 year old Rohingya refugee that she had been raped by a police officer attached to the Mirihana Detention Camp. 

The victim was admitted to Kalubowila Teaching Hospital when the incident took place. Her brother filed a complaint after he went to visit her in hospital one night to find that she was not there but had been "taken away" by a police officer and dropped back the following morning. 

See more here
 

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