Sri Lanka said Thursday it would Not allow the United Nation's Human Rights envoy to visit rebel-held areas in the island's north. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour, is due in Sri Lanka next week to assess the island's deteriorating rights record, while the UN's top torture investigator, Manfred Novak, is already in the country.

But Human Rights Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe said "Neither Novak or Madam Louise Arbour can visit Kilinochchi," the de facto capital of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

The minister said the Tigers could use the visit for propaganda and that security was a concern. "Visiting foreign dignitaries are free to travel to other parts of the country to get a first-hand idea of what's happening on the ground," Samarasinghe told reporters.

Rights groups accuse the government and the LTTE of gross rights abuses, extra-judicial killings and scores of disappearances of civilians and political activists.Sri Lanka narrowly avoided censure at the United Nations Human Rights Council last month with the UN body putting off a decision to review the island's rights record.

In July, London-based rights group Amnesty International said hundreds of people disappeared in Sri Lanka in the past year and more than 5,700 such cases from the past three decades were under UN review. Rights groups have said that abuses have increased in tandem with an escalation of fighting between troops and the Tamil Tiger rebels.

The pro-rebel North East Secretariat on Human Rights said this week that 2,812 Tamil civilians had been killed and 947 "disappeared" in the embattled areas since 2002. Sri Lanka has also been rapped by local and international rights groups for allegedly colluding with a breakaway Tamil rebel faction known as the Karuna group, which has been implicated in the recruitment of child soldiers.

WHAT WILL BE THE BRITISH GOVERNMENTS POSITION NOW?

On the 6th September Garath Thomas Member of Parliament for Harrow West and Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in the Department for International Development (DFID) after meeting Mr G L Peris Sri Lanka’s Trade Minister said that ''British Government is extremely concerned about the Human Rights abuses now taking place in Sri Lanka.

They have been well documented by groups such as Amnesty International and People like Louise Arbour United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and variety of other organisations, as a result of those concerns of Human Rights violations we took the decision to withhold temporarily some of our aid to send our signal of concern to the Sri Lankan government. But we have continuously talked to the Sri Lankan government. I had a meeting with Mr John Hutton the Secretary of State of Trade and Sri Lanka’s Trade Minister Mr G L Peries and raised Britain's concern about the increase of Human Rights abuses in Sri Lanka. The British government will look at the Louise Arbour's report for further developments.''

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour, is due in Sri Lanka next week to assess the island's deteriorating rights record, while the UN's top torture investigator, Manfred Novak, is already in the country.

But Human Rights Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe said "neither Novak or Madam Louise Arbour can visit Kilinochchi," the de facto capital of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

The minister said the Tigers could use the visit for propaganda and that security was a concern.

"Visiting foreign dignitaries are free to travel to other parts of the country to get a first-hand idea of what's happening on the ground," Samarasinghe told reporters.

Rights groups accuse the government and the LTTE of gross rights abuses, extra-judicial killings and scores of disappearances of civilians and political activists.

Sri Lanka narrowly avoided censure at the United Nations Human Rights Council last month with the UN body putting off a decision to review the island's rights record.

In July, London-based rights group Amnesty International said hundreds of people disappeared in Sri Lanka in the past year and more than 5,700 such cases from the past three decades were under UN review.

Rights groups have said that abuses have increased in tandem with an escalation of fighting between troops and the Tamil Tiger rebels.

The pro-rebel North East Secretariat on Human Rights said this week that 2,812 Tamil civilians had been killed and 947 "disappeared" in the embattled areas since 2002.

Sri Lanka has also been rapped by local and international rights groups for allegedly colluding with a breakaway Tamil rebel faction known as the Karuna group, which has been implicated in the recruitment of child soldiers.

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