Sri Lanka slams Pillay; Report has gone beyond mandate

Minister Samarasinghe:delete all references to the PoE Report as it was not referred to in the Resolution 19/2

(AD) Sri Lanka today addressing the 22nd Session of the UNHRC stated that the Report of the High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay has gone beyond the mandate granted under resolution 19/2 which limited her role to reporting on the provision of technical assistance.

Ex-army chief: Sri Lanka should not fear inquiry

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka - (AP) -- The ex-army chief who led the military campaign to defeat Tamil Tiger rebels says Sri Lanka should not fear an inquiry into its conduct during the civil war after a U.N. report alleged the government may be to blame for thousands of civilian deaths.
Former commander-turned-politician Sarath Fonseka spoke as international pressure has been growing for an independent investigation into possible war crimes. The U.N. Human Rights Council is discussing a draft resolution, and rights groups and foreign governments have called for a probe of the civil war that ended in 2009, after the government troops crushed the separatist rebels.

India to move amendments to UN resolution on Sri Lanka

Finance Minister P Chidambaram on the right

New Delhi: India will move amendments to the UN resolution against Sri Lanka at Geneva later this week, the government said today. Senior ministers also confirmed that they are working on support for a parliamentary resolution that will ask for an independent inquiry into alleged atrocities against Sri Lankan Tamils.

The Rochdale Red Cross worker who continues to haunt Sri Lanka

Travelling to Sri Lanka to try and find out about his constituent's murder, Simon Danczuk learned that when politicians are implicated, justice is kicked into the long grass.

Simon Danczuk 

Khuram Shaik, who died in an attack in Sri Lanka on Christmas Day 2011.

SriLanka: Govt prescribs US $ 179 monthly salary for a newspaper editor

Sri Lanka media guards top salary secret by LBO

Sri Lanka’s media, including banned-but-popular news websites, have evidently avoided reporting on the “princely wages” they have just been awarded by a government keen to win over their support.
The Wages Board for the Journalists Trade determined last week that an editor of a daily newspaper should be paid a minimum 22,730/ ( 179US)  rupees,

More Support Foreseen for US Resolution on Sri Lanka at UNHRC in Geneva This Year Than Last Year-NYT

SriLanka Lion flag at UNHRC ( photo: SLB)

NICK CUMMING-BRUCE

GENEVA — The United Nations Human Rights Council is preparing to vote this week on a resolution that urges Sri Lanka to deliver on its promises to investigate allegations of mass civilian slaughter in the army campaign that crushed a rebel group in May 2009, and expresses growing international concern over a lengthy catalog of continuing atrocities.

Sri Lanka population ratio :Sinhalese (1.04%) and Muslims (1.87%) increase while Sri Lankan Tamils and Indian Tamils decrease

A Tamil student: Tamil population is deceasing

Population: Census expert disputes anti-Muslim claim
Dasun Edirisinghe

A senior census and statistics official yesterday disputed a claim being propagated in the country that the Muslim population is likely exceed that of the majority community. The Sinhala population in the country is 74.9 per cent according to the Basic Population Information Report of the Census of Population and Housing 2011.

CPI(M) for full autonomy for Sri Lankan Tamils

Sitaram Yechury: We are for full autonomy for (Sri) Lankan Tamils

Describing as “state of uncertainty” the situation at the Centre in the aftermath of DMK’s pullout decision from UPA, CPI(M) on Tuesday said it favours full autonomy for Sri Lankan Tamils.
“Right now the situation (at the Centre) is in a state of uncertainty... they (DMK) have formally announced pulling out of UPA and the government is in minority because of this,” CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury told reporters here outside Parliament.

Has India watered down UN resolution against SL yet again?

G Pramod Kumar
The Indian government seems to have been successful in watering down the proposed second US resolution against Sri Lanka at the UNHRC.
The revised US draft, which was tabled on Monday, is much softer and “there is a lot of evidence to clearly show the imprint of Indian influence,” said G Ananthapadmanabhan, Chief Executive of Amnesty International in India.

US explains human rights resolution against Sri Lanka

The conflict claimed up to 1,00,000 lives, according to UN estimates, and both sides are accused of war crime

Washington: The US is going ahead with its resolution against Sri Lanka at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva as the Rajapaksa government has failed to fulfill its international obligations, which it promised after the fall of the LTTE, the Obama Administration said.

Sonia: Plight of Sri Lankan Tamils is close to our hearts

Congress President Sonia Gandhi (The Hindu)

 

Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Tuesday demanded an “independent and credible” inquiry into the violation of human rights in Sri Lanka even as she refused to comment on key UPA ally DMK withdrawing support to the government at the Centre.

Sri Lankan Muslims under threat ( Dawn, Pakistan)

SL Muslims protest against a Mosque attack

 Irfan Husain 
A CURIOUS story in a local English daily caught my eye the other day. It seemed the Sri Lanka Muslim Council had given in to demands that meat could be sold without halal certification. This is a huge success for radical Buddhist groups who have been orchestrating an anti-Muslim campaign for the last few years.

Key changes in the revised 3rd draft of the US resolution : Reporting to 24th session & Inter-active dialogue in 25th session dropped

(SLB)

The 3rd revised draft of the US initiated resolution on Sri Lanka , Promoting reconciliation and accountability in Sri Lanka  has been tabled this (18^th March 2013) evening. No further changes are envisaged between now and voting day  although it is possible to submit oral revisions on voting day.

The interlocutors of Bodu Bala Sena and Sinhala Ravaya, spewing a heavy dose of religious intolerance, act as the Buddhist equivalent to fundamentalist mullahs

The Flags: Bodu Bala Sena and Sinhala Ravaya

Ranga Jayasuriya
Religious groups compete with each other for their constituency, just like terrorists, trade unions, or any other factions of competing ideologies do. That would perhaps explain the increasing militant activism of two controversial Buddhist groups: Bodu Bala Sena and Sinhala Ravaya.

UNHRC Sri Lanka resolution : A vote would expose who had sided with the US for their benefit & countries influenced by the LTTE rump - GoSL sources

Voting at UNHRC on SL resolution , March 2012

GoSL rejects joint resolution, stage set for Geneva vote By Shamindra Ferdinando
Sri Lanka’s refusal to move a joint resolution on accountability issues, at the ongoing United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) sessions, has set the stage for a vote on the second US motion, targeting the country, since the conclusion of the conflict in May 2009. The vote will take place on March 21.

Tamil Nadu CM Jayalalitha proposes amendments ( to Indian Govt) to US resolution at UNHRC

India must take a historic stance on Tamils issue: Jayalalithaa

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Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa. File photo

• Text of Jayalalithaa's letter to PM

a on Monday joined other political leaders of the State to demand that India take a strong stand in support of the US-sponsored resolution on Sri Lanka’s human rights record in the 22nd Session of the UN Human Rights Council and “more importantly,” move necessary independent amendments to further strengthen the resolution.

In her letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the Chief Minister gave a host of specific suggestions in making the text of the resolution stronger.

Centre cool to DMK’s demand for declaring civilian deaths as ‘genocide’

"The Dravida Munnetra Kazhgam’s demand for declaring the civilian deaths in the Sri Lankan conflict as genocide is an overstatement, especially in the context of this weekend’s vote at the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) on the U.S.-sponsored resolution on the island nation’s human rights record, well-placed official sources told The Hindu.

In the annals of race relations there is nothing to parallel the halal problem in Sri Lanka: it is almost certainly unique in its sheer quasi-insane irrationality

A page from  the Face Book: And yet there has been a protracted hate campaign against the Muslims

Izeth Hussain
It is questionable whether there are today any purely internal problems, serious internal problems, without any external dimension to them at all. It is true that governments frequently try to explain away internal problems, for which they alone are responsible, by alleging foreign interference.

UNP shows its true Colours:Ranil says Govt. has signed too many HR treaties

Even as Sri Lanka comes under heavy international scrutiny about its human rights record in Geneva this month, Opposition Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe yesterday faulted the incumbent regime for signing certain international conventions and protocols that obliged the country to abide by international humanitarian law.Wickremesinghe who was addressing party activists at the UNP Headquarters Sirikotha yesterday said that the Government had supported a resolution at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva in 2009 that accepted the Council’s power to investigate human rights violations in UN Member states.

Mullikulam: Restrictions on fishing, cultivation, access to the church and school continue

WATCHDOG

The continuous appeals and campaigns carried out by the people of Mullikulam, the Bishop of Mannar, Rt. Rev. Dr. Rayappu Joseph and members of the clergy and civil society seems to have finally borne some results, in terms of the resettlement process of the people of Mullikulam. Even though the situation is still far from ideal, and the people still aspire to return home, as the intention of the Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) to stay put, is quite clear, and as the people have suffered for so long, they have reluctantly agreed to being resettled 750m outside of their original residential lands.

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UN special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression Refused Entry

Frank La Rue

The government has refused to accede to a request by the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, Frank La Rue, to visit Sri Lanka.
 The Permanent Mission of Sri Lanka to the United Nations Office at Geneva has told La Rue that his mandate on Sri Lanka was only for the period the UN Human Rights Council resolution 19/2 adopted in March 2012 was in force and not after.

Sri Lanka: India to support credible independent international probe

Chidambaram hints at likely vote against Sri Lanka at UN meet

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Karaikudi, Tamil Nadu: Finance Minister P Chidambaram today hinted at a possible vote against Sri Lanka at a session of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) later this month.

Addressing a budget explanatory public meeting his home town, Karaikudi, Mr Chidamabaram said, "I'm not the Prime Minister nor I am the External Affairs Minister. I'm confident that if phrases in the UN resolution sought credible independent international probe, India would support it."

What’s new in the Tamil diaspora?: The Global Tamil Forum comes out of the shadows

House of Commons, 27 February 2013
Picture includes GTF Chair Fr. Emanuel, UK Deputy Premier Nick Cleg and TNA’s Sampanthan.

Kumar David
It is to be expected that the obliteration of the LTTE would transform all Tamil polity. Armed militancy has ceased in Lanka (except the hallucinatory hypocrisy of the Defence Ministry when cracking down on rights and freedoms), and the TNA has surfaced as the main political representative of the Ceylon Tamils. (Ceylon is used here to exclude Muslims and Upcountry Tamils and the generic Tamil hereafter refers to Ceylon Tamils).

S.G. Punchihewa, Champion of a decent society

By Dr. Paikasothy Saravanamuttu

''I am deeply honoured and very pleased to be able to contribute an article on an individual who is a lawyer, human rights activist and communicator and one who possesses the attributes I outlined in abundance.  S.G. Punchihewa has spent decades of his life, serving the peoples of this country, tirelessly talking and writing about rights through good times and more frequently through bad and even worse times''

Sri Lanka bars Briton with Buddha tattoo

Sri Lanka denied entry to a British tourist sporting a Buddha tattoo on his arm because he showed disrespect to Buddhism, a newspaper report said Saturday.

The unnamed Briton was turned back at Bandaranaike International Airport late Friday, according to the daily Lankadeepa Sinhalese.

"When questioned about the tattoo, he spoke very disrespectfully about Buddhism," an immigration official told the newspaper.