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# In Geneva, Tamil Activists Seek Genocide Inquiry as Sri Lanka Pushes Back
- URL: https://www.jaffnamonitor.com/in-geneva-tamil-activists-seek-genocide-inquiry-as-sri-lanka-pushes-back/
- Published: 2026-09-13T02:46:41.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-13T02:47:27.000Z
- Author: Our Reporter
- Tags: September 2026

**GENEVA —** Tamil activists urged the United Nations Human Rights Council on Tuesday to open an independent international investigation into whether Sri Lanka's treatment of Tamils during and after its civil war amounted to genocide, and to appoint a country-specific expert to monitor the island.

The appeals were made during the general debate under Item 2 at the council's 63rd session, which opened in Geneva on Sept. 7, and came in the same sitting at which the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights presented its latest written update on reconciliation and accountability in Sri Lanka.

Durga Owen, who addressed the council in a joint statement delivered under the accreditation of Étudiants pour une Société Durable Paris, called for an independent international investigation into whether abuses committed against Tamils constituted genocide or demonstrated genocidal intent. She also asked the council to appoint a special rapporteur on Sri Lanka, citing continued militarisation, military occupation of land and reprisals against Tamils in the north and east.

Sri Lanka's permanent representative in Geneva, Sumith Dassanayake, set out the opposite position at the same sitting. He told the council that no mandate should be treated as indefinite, that country-specific mandates should be reviewed periodically against measurable outcomes, and that sunset clauses should be written into country-specific resolutions where appropriate. Where a state demonstrates progress through national processes, he said, there should be a credible pathway to concluding the mandate.

Successive Sri Lankan governments have rejected the allegation that the state committed genocide during the war, which ended in May 2009 with the military defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. The current government has also rejected Human Rights Council resolution 46/1, the measure that established the U.N. human rights office's evidence-gathering mandate on Sri Lanka.A second Tamil advocate, Lavaniya Thavaraja, addressed the same debate in a joint statement delivered under the accreditation of Association Humanitaire Franco-Sri Lankaise.

Several other organisations raised Sri Lanka in the debate. Amnesty International told the council that exhumations at the Chemmani site had recovered remains corresponding to more than 583 people, including children, and said the failure of domestic mechanisms made sustained international engagement essential. 

Human Rights Watch said its latest research found systematic impunity for grave international crimes and continuing surveillance of victims and activists campaigning for justice, and noted that none of the remains recovered at Chemmani have been identified. People for Equality and Relief in Lanka called for an independent international mechanism and for member states to pursue cases through universal jurisdiction, the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice.

The U.N. report, covering developments from October 2025 to July 2026, calls on the Sri Lankan government to build on steps already taken towards accountability. It notes anti-corruption measures and arrests linked to political killings, enforced disappearances and the 2019 Easter Sunday attacks, while raising concerns over the continued use of the Prevention of Terrorism Act, allegations of torture and deaths in custody, and surveillance of civil society activists and journalists. The council extended the mandate of the U.N. human rights office on Sri Lanka in October 2025 through resolution 60/1, which requires a comprehensive report at the council's 66th session in September 2027.