Yahapalana Government Violating HR of Majority Sinhalese – Jayaraj at UNHRC

The Hon. Secretary of Global Sri Lankan Forum in UK stated that although UNHRC is busy with taking care of minorities’ rights in Sri Lanka  they have grossly ignored the basic rights of majority Sinhala people  in Sri Lanka.

Jayaraj Palihawadana highlighted this unfairness at the 39th  session held in Geneva on 14th Sep. 2018.

The full text of the speech delivered by Jayaraj is as follows;

Mr. President,

Today we talk of promotion and protection of human rights including civil and political rights.  I bring to the Council’s attention that, in Sri Lanka, the Franchise of the people is being violated by the Government’s continuing postponement of elections, in this case the Provincial Council elections.

Article 30 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states: ‘Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or organization a right to engage in any activity aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein.’

This means, in carrying out its mandate the Council cannot promote the human rights of one group of people in a country if it entails violating the human rights of some other group in the same country.

Since 2012, the Council has adopted a number of resolutions on Sri Lanka calling inter alia for war crimes investigations, and most importantly a ‘political settlement’ for the problems of the minorities, especially the Tamils, in Sri Lanka.

 However, the Council has not said a word about the continuing postponement of elections in Sri Lanka, which is a violation of the Franchise of the citizens of Sri Lanka, especially the Sinhalese, the majority community in the island.

I urge the Council to immediately redress this matter.

Thank You.