Blacklisting of persons & organizations : President’s Office explains procedure

The President’s Media Division (PMD) has issued a special statement on the procedure that was followed in the blacklisting and delisting of persons and organizations under UNSC 1373.

The PMD said an explanation regarding the background and previous conditions for the methodology to be implemented regarding the amendments made to the list of persons named under order 04(7) of the United Nations Directive No. 01 of 2012 mentioned in the Gazette Notification 2291/02 dated 2022-08-01, which has led to controversy in society in recent days, is given below.

Background

On 28th September 2001, the UN Security Council, operating under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, unanimously adopted UNSC Resolution 1373.

It has assigned a series of responsibilities aimed at combating terrorism to its member states.

Accordingly, the Special Gazette No. 1758/19 dated 15 May 2012 has been issued by the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka to deal primarily with the financing of terrorism under UN Directive No. 01 of 2012.

Process

In order to implement the above orders in Sri Lanka, the subject minister, who is the Minister of Foreign Affairs, has liaised with the Minister in charge of Defence and appointed the Secretary of the Ministry of Defence as the competent authority.

Accordingly, a committee consisting of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Attorney General’s Department, intelligence agencies, law enforcement agencies and the Financial Intelligence Unit of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka, in accordance with the relevant orders of the competent authority, conducted a study on the activities of individuals and organizations involved in providing financial support to terrorism in the past few years and the listing or delisting is done based on evidence.

Accordingly, eight formal gazettes have been published from 2014 to 01.08.2022.

The preliminary investigations related to Gazette 2291/02 published on 01.08.2022 was initiated in the month of March 2022 and accordingly, the terrorist or extremist organizations living in the country or outside the country and those connected to it and their related finances, assets, terrorist activities were investigated and the listing or delisting of these individuals or organizations were done based on whether or not they had direct or indirect links to extremist activities.

If an organization or a person listed in this manner wants to file any objection in this regard, it is possible to submit an application to the competent authority and make a written request to be removed from the list along with the reasons.

The relevant departments will then report the request to the competent authority after an extensive study of information. The competent authority is then responsible for making recommendations to the minister of external affairs as to whether the person or organization should be removed from the list.

The Minister’s decision is final and aggrieved parties have the ability to challenge the decision by filing a complaint with the High Court.

Further, any person or entity affected by freezing of existing money or funds, asset freezing order or other financial assets or economic resources or other related services has the scope to complain to the High Court.

The final decision of each of these measures will be published by the competent authority through a gazette. Accordingly, 316 individuals and 06 organizations have been removed from the list by Gazette No. 2291/2 dated 08.01.2022 after a formal and in-depth information study based on evidence under the UN Order No. 01 of 2012.

Also, 316 individuals and 15 organizations including 55 newly identified individuals and 03 organizations have been listed by the above gazette.

The delisted organizations