UK blacklists Sri Lanka; sells it arms
Iran Press TV
Mon Feb 18, 2013 9:49AM GMT
Britain has raised eyebrows selling millions of pounds of weapons to Sri Lanka over the past year while British Foreign Office blacklists Colombo as a human rights abuser.
Sri Lanka has received a range of weapons including assault rifles, shotguns and ammunitions under the British government licenses for arms exports.
The figures obtained from the government's own database for strategic exports control by the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) show sales worth more than £3 million in 2012.
This comes as the British Foreign Office lists Sri Lanka as a "country of concern" for its alleged treatment of Tamil minority and crackdown on armed separatists.
The Foreign Office said in December 2012 that they consider the human rights situation in Sri Lanka in the three months to December as deteriorating.
Britain frowned on Sri Lanka in 2009 for its war on the Tamil Tiger separatists that left an estimated 60,000 to 100,000 people killed.
British rights groups including Human Rights Watch, Freedom from Torture and Tamils Against Genocide claim they have evidence of at least 40 cases where Tamils who returned to their home country from European nations faced torture by Sri Lankan authorities.
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