The HRW officials, including its Legal director, James Ross, had reportedly arrived on a tourist visa and had not sought Foreign Ministry approval to carry out their duties in Srilanka including the holding of a press conference to release the report or carry out any research. The New York based HRW had also sought a meeting with Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama prior to embarking on their visit to Sri Lanka last week but the request was turned down owing to the bad history between HRW and the government resulting from various allegations of human rights abuses by the state.

However the HRW officials have allegedly visited the country last week and had even met Minister of Foreign Employment, Keheliya Rambukwelle to discuss recommendations to assist Sri Lankan migrant workers in the Middle East after which they released a report at a press briefing held at the Renuka Hotel on abuses faced by the workers.The Foreign Ministry had subsequently last week made inquiries from the Immigration and Emigration Department on what basis the HRW officials managed to enter the country and action that needed to be initiated in the event they were still in the country.

On an earlier occasion the government alleged that Charu Hogg of HRW had also entered the country on a tourist Visa but subsequently carried out research on human rights abuses and also met President Mahinda Rajapaksa before releasing a damning report against Sri Lanka. Similarly, following a controversial campaign by Amnesty International (AI) during the cricket world cup to highlight human rights abuses in Sri Lanka the government had also refused entry to AI officials in London who had sought visas to carry out research in the country.

While commenting this act of the Srilankan government some local and international media commentators said, though the Srilankan government attempted to curb the international agencies from releasing condemning reports relating to its human Rights Violations, in every attempts of the srilankan government has been thrived by the international rights groups.

The international organizations also studied well about the Srilankan government’s poor ruling administration in all sectors especially in the Immigration and Emigration department.

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