The Sri Lankan Navy has called on Australia to deport asylum seekers back to the island, following the deportation of Dayan Anthony, the first Tamil asylum seeker to be sent back to Sri Lanka since the end of 2009 massacre.

Speaking to The Australian, head of Sri Lankan Naval intelligence Nishantha Ulugetenne said,

"When you start deporting, then this problem will ease for us,"

"Sending just one man back from Australia will not help. More than 1500 Sri Lankans have landed in Australia in the last six months. What are you going to do with them? Screen them one by one?"

Ulugetenne’s comments were echoed by Sri Lanka's naval operations director Commodore N. Attygalle who stated “ the best way is deportation".

Dayan Anthony withdrew his claims of torture at the hands of Sri Lankan authorities, after being presented at a media conference, directly after 16 hours of Sri Lankan police interrogation.

See our earlier post: Torture claims withdrawn by deported Tamil Asylum seeker after 16 hours of Sri Lankan Police custody ‘interrogation’ (27 July 2012)

The deportation came despite a request from the Committee on Torture under the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights asking for the removal to be halted until Mr Anthony’s case was thoroughly assessed. The request was ignored by Australia, seemingly the first time that such a refusal had taken place, with human rights lawyer Phil Lynch commenting,

“It [the request] is the international equivalent of an urgent legal injunction.’

On Saturday another group of asylum seekrs who attempted to flee from Sri Lanka were arrested by the Sri Lankan Navy. Over 700 people have been arrested over the last 6 months for attempting to migrate from Sri Lanka, with over 500 arrests occuring in the last 2 weeks alone.