Next week Sri Lanka will host Commonwealth Heads of Government Meet (CHOGM), apparently the first Asian country to host it in 24 years. According to its charter, the Commonwealth is committed to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other relevant human rights covenants and international instruments.
The host state, however, has abysmal records on human rights: military backed rape and killing, and the continued forced-disappearance of its own citizens even after the violent ending of 27 years of conflict when 40,000 civilians were murdered. Sri Lanka does not have any moral standing to host any event that is supposed to promote and restore human rights and democracy.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Ms. Navi Pillai in her press conference in Colombo said that Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealam (LTTE) was a murderous organisation and then expressed serious concerns about Sri Lankan government’s militarisation of civil zones in the name of post-war development; worried about the increased vulnerability of women and girls, especially female headed households to sexual harassment and abuse and the forced disappearance of many civilians not only in the North-East provinces and but also abductions in white vans in Colombo which will not fall within the scope of Commission of Inquiry on Disappearances.
Ms. Pillai also said, "more than 30 journalists are believed to have been killed since 2005, and several more – including the cartoonist Prageeth Ekneligoda – have disappeared." Full story...
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The host state, however, has abysmal records on human rights: military backed rape and killing, and the continued forced-disappearance of its own citizens even after the violent ending of 27 years of conflict when 40,000 civilians were murdered. Sri Lanka does not have any moral standing to host any event that is supposed to promote and restore human rights and democracy.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Ms. Navi Pillai in her press conference in Colombo said that Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealam (LTTE) was a murderous organisation and then expressed serious concerns about Sri Lankan government’s militarisation of civil zones in the name of post-war development; worried about the increased vulnerability of women and girls, especially female headed households to sexual harassment and abuse and the forced disappearance of many civilians not only in the North-East provinces and but also abductions in white vans in Colombo which will not fall within the scope of Commission of Inquiry on Disappearances.
Ms. Pillai also said, "more than 30 journalists are believed to have been killed since 2005, and several more – including the cartoonist Prageeth Ekneligoda – have disappeared." Full story...
Related posts:
- Hundreds of grim reapers protest at Cameron's stance on Sri Lanka...
- Commonwealth apathy over Sri Lanka is only to be expected...
- Commonwealth giving Sri Lanka carte blanche for human rights abuses...
- Fate of Tamil TV presenter: chilling new evidence from Sri Lanka (Graphic)
- No Fire Zone: the killing fields of Sri Lanka...(Graphic)
- Handed a snack, and then executed: the last hours of the 12-year-old son...
- Sri Lanka's killing fields 2. Unpunished war crimes. (Graphic)
- Sri Lanka's killing fields (Graphic)
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