In a recent press conference, Sri Lanka’s Public Security Minister Tiran Alles pledged to persist with the contentious Yukthiya anti-drug campaign. Alles is one of twelve members of Parliament’s Select Committee assigned to handle the nation’s drug issues.
The campaign, which was introduced in December 2023, urged drug traffickers and organized criminals to cease their operations, announcing that the law enforcement agencies would use maximal force against them.
On the other hand, a group of over 30 international organizations, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, released a unified statement on Monday, expressing severe unease about the ramped-up anti-drug endeavors in Sri Lanka leading to significant human rights abuses.
The statement pointed out that law enforcement had carried out arbitrary arrests and illegitimate searches and seizures, often broadcasting these actions, thus infringing the right to privacy and the presumption of innocence. It also criticized the Yukthiya campaign for primarily charging those arrested with non-bailable offenses and detaining them under “inhuman and degrading conditions”. Furthermore, the statement claimed that the authorities had forcibly sent at least 1,600 individuals to drug rehabilitation centers, thereby violating their right to consent or opt-out of medical treatments. As of January 9, over 29,000 arrests have reportedly taken place.
The international bodies have called on Sri Lanka to adopt a more “holistic and human rights based approach” in line with the2019 Ministerial Declaration on drugs – the prevailing universal drug policy document.
Contrarily, in reply to the global criticism against Yukthiya, Alles stated that “all established and recognized media outlets, blessed it.” He further refuted allegations against the campaign as baseless, claiming that only a “small group surviving via the illegal drug business were making such baseless allegations.”
The full story was originally reported here.