Sri Lanka

Both local and Indian-origin Tamils maintained that they suffered long-standing, systematic discrimination in university education, government employment, and other matters controlled by the government. On February 22, TNA parliamentarians filed a fundamental rights violation petition complaining of purported forced registration of residents in the predominantly Tamil Jaffna and Kilinochchi districts. On March 3, the Supreme Court terminated the proceedings after the attorney general informed the court that the army would stop the registrations. Nevertheless, reports continued throughout the year of army registrations in the north. Tamils throughout the country, but especially in the north and east, reported frequent harassment of young and middle-age Tamil men by security forces and paramilitary groups.