With conditions among the asylum seekers on Diego Garcia growing dire and the island set to be ceded to Mauritius, the UK is under pressure to relocate the 56 Sri Lankan asylum seekers stranded there, plus eight receiving medical treatment in Rwanda. On Oct. 8, the UK offered to transfer 36 of them to a UN-run transit center in Timișoara, Romania. After six months there, if they do not accept repatriation or re-settlement in another country, they will be accepted to the UK. The offer reverses years of insistence by UK officials that none of them would be brought to the UK. However, lawyers are trying to have the group brought to the UK directly, arguing that they will end up there anyway, and forcing them to spend six months in a Romanian "detention facility" with barred windows would "cause them to suffer further avoidable harm." One British official said the reason for the six-month detour was to ensure that coming to Diego Garcia does not "provide a direct route to the UK." The lawyers say the transfer of sovereignty to Mauritius negates that concern. The Romania plan has also upset the 28 men who did not receive the offer and have been told they will stay on the island indefinitely if they do not accept repatriation. At least two staged a hunger strike after they heard the news, according to one of the asylum seekers in Rwanda. 

Lawyers for some of approximately 60 Sri Lankan Tamil asylum-seekers stranded on the British-held island of Diego Garcia have appealed to the UK's new Foreign Minister David Lammy to intervene after the US blocked them from visiting the island for a hearing set to take place this week. The US runs a secretive military facility on the island, and issued the decision to bar the legal team on a "confidential" basis, citing "national security." The lawyers are accusing the island's government—the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) administration—of illegally detaining their clients, who have been confined to a small camp for nearly three years after fleeing Sri Lanka and India by boat. The BIOT administration claims to have no role in negotiating permission for the visit, but lawyers for the asylum-seekers say the administration has a duty to persuade the US to allow the hearing to take place and ensure the rule of law on the remote British territory.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) on April 7 condemned Sri Lanka's proposed Anti-Terrorism Act, charging that it would allow authorities to systematically violate fundamental rights. HRW recommended that the government withdraw the bill until it can properly meet international human rights standards. The current text of the bill, intended to replace the 1979 Prevention of Terrorism Act, includes crimes such as property damage, theft or robbery under "terrorism" offenses, and would restrict the rights to freedom of assembly and speech. The bill further grants the police and military broad powers to detain people without evidence.

Sri Lanka's newly appointed acting president Ranil Wickremesinghe unleashed police and army troops against remnant protesters at an encampment site in the capital, Colombo, in the early hours of July 22. More than 50 were injured in the raid and some 10 arrested. Military personnel also reportedly detained a small group of protesters for several hours and severely beat them before they were released. Just hours before the raid, protest leaders had announced that they would disband the encampment the following day, in response to a court order. The site had been occupied by protesters since March, when an uprising began in response to near-total economic collapse in the country.

Sri Lanka's President Gotabaya Rajapaksa declared a nationwide state of emergency April 2, as angry protests over fuel shortages and power cuts erupted in the capital Colombo. When police repression failed to quell the protests, Rajapaksa sought to appease demands for his resignation with a purge of his cabinet. The emergency order was lifted April 5—the same day Peru's President Pedro Castillo imposed a curfew in Lima and its port of Callao in response to an eruption of protests over dramatic fuel price hikes. As street clashes broke out in the cities, farmers outraged at a jump in fertilizer costs blocked highways at several points around the country—including Ica, where a toll-booth was set on fire. The world has seen an oil price surge to $100 a barrel in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. (The Hindu, PTI, NYT, Jurist, Al Jazeera, DW, BBC News, AFP, El Popular)

Sri Lanka's Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa announced Feb. 19 that his government will withdraw from co-sponsorship of a 2015 UN Human Rights Council resolution calling for an investigation into war crimes committed on the island during the internal conflict with Tamil rebels. UNHRC Resolution 30/1 was actually a compromise measure, after the Sri Lanka government rejected calls for creation an international tribunal. Withdrawal from the resolution is seen a response to the US imposing a travel ban on Sri Lanka's army commander Shavendra Silva and his family over complicity in human rights violations during the conflict, which ended in 2009 after 26 years. (Jurist, NYT, Feb. 19)

As Sri Lanka marks the 10-year anniversary of the end of its long internal war this week, human rights groups are demanding accountability in the mass atrocities that marked the final stages of the conflict, in which many thousands were displaced or "disappeared." The International Committee of the Red Cross says 16,000 people are still missing. (The New Humanitarian, Amnesty International) Ominously, the commemoration comes amid a new wave of communal violence following last month's terror attacks that targeted Christians on Easter Sunday. In days of anti-Muslim riots that started May 12, mobs moved through towns in the northwest, ransacking mosques and attacking shops with petrol bombs. The riots came amid the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. The Buddhist militant group Bodu Bala Sena (BBS), which has been repeatedly linked to such pogroms since its founding in 2012, is named as having instigated much of the violence. (Sri Lanka Campaign, Al Jazeera)

After claiming responsibility for the Easter Sunday bomb attacks in Sri Lanka that killed over 320 people, ISIS has released a photo and video of the supposed mastermind of the attack and other of the alleged suicide bombers. The video and the photo released through the terrorist network's Amaq News Agency purport to show the Sri Lankan militants pledging allegiance to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, in his presence. (Colombo Page) Sri Lankan authorities had named a little-known militant group called National Thowheeth Jama'ath as behind the attacks—a name roughly translated as  "group in the name of the oneness of God." Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe acknowledged that his security services had been tipped off that the group was planning attacks, admitting that the "information was there." (Al Jazeera, Gulf News, Time)