Sri Lanka’s political detainees tortured in custody: Rights group

International Truth and Justice Project report says 15 Tamils were beaten, burned, suffocated and sexually assaulted.

Political detainees in Sri Lanka are being tortured while in police and military custody, a human rights lawyer who wrote a report on alleged abuses says, days before a United Nations human rights summit. The International Truth and Justice Project (ITJP), a rights group documenting alleged abuses in Sri Lanka, on Friday gave details in its report of 15 members of the minority Tamil community, who said they were beaten, burned, suffocated and sexually assaulted by authorities over the past two years. Together, their testimony is the most detailed account of alleged new abuses in the island nation since former wartime defence chief Gotabaya Rajapaksa became president in 2019.