A Brief Colonial History Of Ceylon(SriLanka)
Sri Lanka: One Island Two Nations
A Brief Colonial History Of Ceylon(SriLanka)
Sri Lanka: One Island Two Nations
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Thiranjala Weerasinghe sj.- One Island Two Nations
?????????????????????????????????????????????????Friday, November 17, 2017
Sri Lanka: Adopt Timeline for Action
Promises to UN Human Rights Council Go Unmet
© 2017 Reuters
November 15, 2017 1:45AM EST
(Geneva) – Countries at the United Nations Human Rights Council should press Sri Lanka for a time-bound action plan on reforms during its third Universal Periodic Review,
which begins November 15, 2017, Human Rights Watch said today.
Successive Sri Lankan governments, including under President Maithripala
Sirisena, have failed to ensure accountability for serious rights
violations and other important commitments.
Under the Universal Periodic Review, each UN member state provides
updates and undergoes scrutiny of its human rights situation every four
years. At the Human Rights Council, other countries are given a chance
to express their concerns and make recommendations for improvement.
“The Sirisena government made key pledges at the Human Rights Council in
October 2015 to ensure justice, accountability, and security sector
reform,” said John Fisher,
Geneva director. “The failure of the government to fulfill most of
these promises has brought its commitment to reform into question and
dashed hopes of victims and affected communities.”
The Sri Lankan government has taken several positive steps since the last review in 2012. Human
rights activists and journalists do not fear arrest for expressing
their views and criticism. Allegations of arbitrary arrests and enforced
disappearances against the Tamil minority have dropped considerably. In
May 2016, the government ratified the International Convention for the
Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance. Since 2015, Sri
Lanka has invited several UN and other international experts to provide
recommendations.
However, a number of urgent human rights issues are pending, many arising from the 2015 council resolution that promised to create four transitional justice mechanisms to address abuses linked to the three-decade conflict that
ended in 2009. Thus far, the government has only established the Office
of Missing Persons, but even there has procrastinated.
The government’s budget outline for fiscal year 2018 contains no
reference or allocation for the remaining three mechanisms. Other
resolution undertakings, such as security sector reform and land reform,
remain largely unfulfilled. In particular, the draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) has not yet been repealed;
although the government claims it has not enforced the act for the last
six months, many PTA suspects remain in prison and those finally
released after years of detention without charge have not received
redress. Protests across the country in recent months have demanded reform and justice including for PTA detainees.
During the review, governments should also raise concerns about women’s rights and
protections around sexual orientation and gender identity. Sri Lanka
has discriminatory marriage and divorce laws that unfairly impact women
from minority backgrounds. Laws that criminalize homosexual conduct
remain in effect and are regularly used by the authorities to jail, bribe, and abuse men and women.
“Sri Lanka is in danger of not just standing still on rights, but
backtracking on essential reforms,” Fisher said. “UN members need to
look beyond the increasingly hollow promises of reform, and insist that
the government present an action plan and timeline for honoring its
commitments.”