Speeches

Joan Ryan – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Joan Ryan on 2016-01-28.

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what recent assessment he has made of the prevalence of torture in Sri Lanka.

Mr Hugo Swire

Her Majesty’s Government takes very seriously any allegations of torture or other forms of ill-treatment, in Sri Lanka as in other countries. I raised concerns, highlighted by recent NGO reports on allegations of ongoing torture in Sri Lanka, with both the government and civil society when I visited Sri Lanka in January. British High Commission officials in Colombo are also in regular contact with local human rights organisations in Sri Lanka.