Following on from a MEDACT conference on asylum seekers last month, Tamils Against Genocide have analysed British Home Office policy documents and guidance for asylum caseworkers, attempting to explain why asylum claims from Sri Lanka continue to be dismissed.

Building on work by Professor Anthony Good, Professor Emeritus in Social Anthropology at the University of Edinburgh, TAG assessed Home Office policy, concluding,

“The guidance is flawed, the consequences horrible to contemplate."

Read the full post on the Free Movement blog here.

See extracts below.

"Why are asylum seekers so often disbelieved? How is it that clinical evidence of torture is oftentimes rejected on the grounds of ‘credibility’? Why has the UK judged so many Tamil asylum seekers not to be at risk, forcibly returning them to Sri Lanka where they have gone on to be tortured?"

The Sri Lankan government has launched an official website for the National Action Plan of the implementation of Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) recommendations, reported Colombo Page.

According to reports, the Criminal Investigation's Department (CID) of Sri Lanka, has arrested 12 Special Task Force police officers for the the killing of 5 Tamil students in Trincomalee in Eastern Sri Lanka in 2006.

One of the suspects is reported to include an Assistant Superintendent of Police.

The Trincomalee Chief Magistrate U.L.M. Azhar has ordered that the suspects be remanded until July 18 at the Anuradhapura Prison.

Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa has issued a directive to the Elections Commissioner Mahinda Deshapriya to hold the Northern Provincial Council election.

At the same time, the dissolution of the North-Western Province and Central Province has been approved and will come into effective on midnight on Friday.  According to the Election Secretariat, elections for the three provinces will be held in late September. 

The Higher Education Minister of Sri Lanka, SB Dissanayake, has said in an interview to the Daily News that the TNA has not given up on the Eelam ideology taken by “terrorist” groups and should realise that the country had been united under one flag.