[JURIST] Four prominent Sri Lankan human rights activists have resigned from a government advisory panel to protest Sri Lanka's worsening human rights situation, including ongoing extradjudicial killings, activist and lawyer Nimalka Fernando [advocacy profile] said Monday. The four submitted their resignations last week after Sri Lankan Human Rights Minister Mahinda Samarashinghe rejected [JURIST report] a proposed UN monitoring mission supported by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour [official website].

In August, Human Rights Watch [advocacy website] accused the Sri Lankan government of being responsible for a dramatic increase in unlawful killings and other human rights violations [JURIST report]. In June, the Sri Lankan government, which has been fighting the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) [CFR backgrounder] since 1972, briefly engaged in the systematic detention of ethnic-Tamils until the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka stopped [JURIST report] the practice. AFP has more.