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Moreover, the UNHCR’s “improved situation” doesn’t address the growing anti-government feeling among Singhalese, who used to support the regime’s war, let alone Tamils. Nor does it account for the fact that the government of Sri Lanka continues to fight the ghosts of the LTTE.

Sujendran said his interrogators mostly asked him questions about the LTTE, including “where are the arms?” and “how much money did you collect for LTTE?”

These questions were put to not only Tamil deportees, but also Sinhalese deportees, such as Sumith Mendis.

An asylum seeker, Sumith was deported by the Australian government from a refugee detention centre on October 4, 2009. Upon his return to Sri Lanka, he was arrested at the airport with his brother. Sumith was released, but was arrested again in August and is still held today.

“The CID said people are trying to smuggle LTTE to Australia to rebuild LTTE”, said Sumith’s mother.

“The CID inspector assaulted my husband in front of all his family, including our 4-year-old son”, Sumith’s wife told me.

Sumith’s lawyer has asked the judicial medical official from a hospital where Sumith was treated after torture to issue his client’s medical report. He has received nothing.

Another Singhalese deportee accused of being linked to the LTTE is Lasantha Wijeratne. Lasantha was deported from Australia in November, 2009. He has been detained since early this year.

According to Lasantha’s written statement, the CID questioned him at the airport about “his links with the Tamil asylum seekers in the Christmas Island [detention centre]”.

“If somebody puts your name down as LTTE, then it’s very difficult for you to get out”, said one human rights lawyer in Colombo. “The CID does not need evidence”.

In fact, Lasantha’s father-in-law once housed a Tamil man in early 2008 for two months. The Tamil man was suspected LTTE, which the family never though of. Because of the family’s hospitality, Lasantha’s father was taken to the police station and tortured. He died two days after his release.

Crackdown on asylum seekers, not smuggling networks

Both countries have dramatically reduced the number of Sri Lankan asylum seekers they let in. The Toronto Sun said on November 23 that the acceptance rate for Sri Lankan asylum seekers fell to 47% in September, from 75% in August.

In April, Australia suspended all applications for asylum from people from Sri Lanka (for three months) and Afghanistan (for six months).

On October 6, more than 120 Sri Lankan Tamils in Bangkok were rounded up in the Sapan Mai neighborhood. Among those arrested were four pregnant women and 18 children under four years old — including a two-month-old baby. A further 61 Tamils were arrested on October 30 in Songkhla, southern Thailand.

Australian government officials have also been accused of being present when returned Sri Lankan asylum seekers have been tortured.

In the petition Sumith has prepared to submit to the Supreme Court on September 9, he said that he saw a representative from the Australian High Commission was present as he was tortured on the “4th floor” of the CID.

Sumith’s petition said: “A commissioner with Asian appearance visited the newly created marine unit (of CID) while we were tortured in the same area. The commissioner saw I lay down on the floor (due to torture). He knew that I was a returnee from Christmas Island. I saw the commissioner donated a small fridge to the Unit. I was tortured while the commissioner was inside the same section.”

His lawyer is waiting for the medical report from a judiciary medical official before the petition is submitted to the Supreme Court.

I requested an interview with the Australian High Commission in Colombo in late September. The Commission replied that it did not give interviews to the media and referred me to the foreign affairs department in Canberra.

Sri Lankans have sought asylum in countries such as Australia for many reasons. Some have fled in fear for their lives, while others could be classed as “economic migrants”, encouraged by Sri Lanka’s war-driven economy to seek a better life elsewhere.

But the practice of deporting asylum seekers back to Sri Lanka is placing them in imminent danger. The persecution the Sri Lankan government metes out to returnees will ultimately create more refugees, some of whom perhaps first left Sri Lanka as economic migrants.