Media Guide a Tool to
Press for Answers
Governments attending the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting should press the host, Sri Lanka, on accountability for alleged war crimes and ongoing human rights abuses, Human Rights Watch and the Sri Lanka Campaign for Peace and Justice said today. The two groups released a media guide for the November 15-17, 2013 summit.
The 22-page media guide provides information
on both the summit and Sri Lanka, from practical tips on getting around the
country to the human rights situation four years after the end of the 26-year
conflict with the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. It encourages
journalists at the Commonwealth meeting to look behind the official statements
and tourist attractions and to ask government delegations about concerns over
human rights issues in Sri Lanka.
“The Sri Lankan government’s
promises of accountability since the war’s end have come to very little,” said
Brad
Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “If the Commonwealth has
to have its meeting in Colombo, then human rights protections in Sri Lanka need
to be prominently on the agenda.”
The Sri Lankan government has
taken few meaningful steps to address the massive violations of human rights and
the laws of war that have been reported by the United Nations, the media, and
human rights groups. A United Nations panel of experts found that up to 40,000
civilians died in the final months of fighting. Government authorities have
committed torture, including rape, against suspected rebel supporters both
during and since the conflict. Nearly 6,000 victims of enforced disappearances
remain unaccounted for.
The government is also acting in a
heavy-handed way in connection with the Commonwealth summit itself, Human Rights
Watch and the Sri Lanka Campaign said. The government has denied entry to
participants in an International Bar Association Human Rights Institute,
including two United Nations special rapporteurs. State media has threatened
local activists and the UK’s Channel 4 team.
Given Sri Lanka’s
human rights situation, the Commonwealth should not have agreed to hold the
summit in Sri Lanka or to award the two-year Commonwealth chairmanship to
Colombo, Human Rights Watch and the Sri Lanka Campaign said.
Prime
Minister Stephen Harper of Canada announced that he would not attend the summit
because of the Sri Lankan government’s failure to implement “Commonwealth
values.” The government of the United Kingdom has committed to raising rights
issues during the summit. David Cameron’s spokesperson recently announced that
in the absence of proper investigations by the Sri Lankan government, the UK
will back calls for an international investigation. The Indian prime minister,
Manmohan Singh, has said he will not attend CHOGM, citing domestic
political reasons.
“By
intimidating their critics into silence, carefully managing media opportunities,
and clamping down hard on civil society, the government will attempt to portray
Sri Lanka as a country enjoying a successful reconciliation process,” said Fred
Carver, campaign director at the Sri Lanka Campaign. “This guide will assist
journalists to ask the tough questions that the Sri Lankan government and their
Commonwealth supporters need to answer.”
To view the media guide,
please visit:http://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/related_material/CHOGM%20Journalist%20Guide.pdf
For
more Human Rights Watch reporting on Sri Lanka, please visit:
http://www.hrw.org/asia/sri-lanka
For more information, please
contact:In Bangkok, for Human
Rights Watch, Meenakshi Ganguly (Bengali, Hindi, English): +91-98-20-036032 (mobile); or gangulm@hrw.org. Follow on Twitter
@mg2411
In London, for the Sri Lanka Campaign, Fred
Carver (English): +44-(0)-776-374-5402 (mobile); or director@srilankacampaign.org
In
Bangkok, for Human Rights Watch, Brad Adams (English): +44-7908-728333 (mobile); or adamsb@hrw.org
(New York, November 11, 2013)
