UNHRC issued its one sided Report On Sri Lanka
This report has sparked controversy with its one-sided approach, seemingly prioritizing Western and minority interests ignoring the harassments and disclination going on for the Sinhala Buddhists living in North and Eater two provinces of Sri Lanka. Some observers perceive a bias in the report, suggesting that its drafters view Sri Lanka as a country with inadequate human rights standards compared to Western nations. This perspective appears to overlook human rights issues in Western countries, sparking concerns about the report’s objectivity and motivations.
The list of the recommendations mainly to please the LTTE Tamil diaspora and other minority sectors in Sri Lanka, suggested by the UNHRC are as follows:
The OHCHR calls upon the Government:
- To create an enabling environment for transitional justice by acceding to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, implementing confidence-building measures such as releasing military-held lands, halting new land seizures and accelerating titling efforts in the north and east, releasing all long-term detainees under the Prevention of Terrorism Act, supporting victims’ memorialization initiatives and ensuring the impartiality of the Office on Missing Persons, including by seeking international expertise and monitoring to build its credibility;
- To publish and disseminate all unpublished reports of the various human rights-related commissions of inquiry, such as the zonal and all-island commissions on disappearances and the Army Court of Inquiry into civilian casualties, and the annexes thereto; The Government of Sri Lanka informed OHCHR that the Presidential Secretariat is in the process of publishing these documents on the Presidential Secretariat website.
- To recognize the competence of the Committee on Enforced Disappearances to receive and consider communications under article 31 of the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance;
- To remove credibly alleged perpetrators of human rights violations from power and refrain from appointing or promoting them to high-level positions in the Government, the security sector, or diplomatic postings;
- To apply a moratorium on the use of the Prevention of Terrorism Act, expedite its repeal and ensure that any replacement legislation is consistent with international human rights law and the benchmarks previously set out by United Nations human rights experts; See communication LKA 7/2021, available from https://spcommreports.ohchr.org/TMResultsBase/DownLoadPublicCommunicationFile?gId=26863.
- To repeal or amend existing laws or proposed laws that unduly restrict the rights to freedom of opinion and expression, association, and peaceful assembly, including the Online Safety Act, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights Act, the draft Non-Governmental Organizations (Registration and Supervision) Act, and proposed amendments to Personal Data Protection Act;
- To publicly issue unequivocal instructions to all branches of the military, intelligence and police forces that enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings, torture, sexual violence, and other human rights violations are prohibited and will be systematically investigated and punished;
- To ensure that the public prosecutorial body is fully independent, effective and robust and is able to assess relevant information and make independent prosecutorial decisions, and consider the creation of a judicial mechanism with independent special counsel in relation to the cases of human rights violations and violations of international humanitarian law committed in previous decades;
- To accelerate investigations and prosecutions in emblematic cases of human rights violations, as well as the Easter Sunday bombings, in compliance with international human rights standards, seek international assistance to strengthen A/HRC/60/21 capacities, and ensure the full participation of victims and their representatives and ensure victim and witness protection;
- To swiftly amend the Muslim Marriage and Divorce Act to meet its international human rights obligations;
- To avoid the involvement of the military in law enforcement, commercial activities and civil affairs and significantly reduce the military presence in the Northern and Eastern Provinces as part of security sector reform;
- To adjudicate land disputes in ways that are transparent, consultative, impartial and non-discriminatory and ensure interfaith dialogue about the designation of religious sites;
- To implement its commitment to devolution of political and administrative power to every local government, district and province;
- To assess and mitigate the impact of austerity measures on disadvantaged and marginalized individuals and groups; and to take all appropriate measures to protect the core content of rights under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, especially for those individuals and groups;
- To order all security and intelligence agencies to immediately end all forms of surveillance and harassment of and reprisals against representatives of civil society, human rights defenders, journalists, victims and their families, especially women;
- To accept invitations from, or extend invitations to, relevant special procedure mandate holders to conduct country visits.
The report of OHCHR has recommended that the Human Rights Council and Member States, as applicable:
- Support Sri Lanka in its efforts to promote legal and institutional reform, including measures to ensure accountability, and to advance nationwide reconciliation, peacebuilding and coexistence;
- Cooperate in investigating and prosecuting alleged perpetrators of international crimes committed by all parties in Sri Lanka through judicial proceedings in national jurisdictions, including under accepted principles of extraterritorial or universal jurisdiction, through relevant international networks and mutual legal assistance processes, and in cooperation with survivors, families and their representatives;
- Consider using other international legal options to advance accountability in Sri Lanka;
- Explore, as part of a wider range of accountability measures and consistent with international law, further targeted sanctions such as asset freezes and travel bans against individuals credibly alleged to have perpetrated gross international human rights violations or serious humanitarian law violations;
- Support OHCHR to continue its monitoring and reporting and its strengthened work on accountability for human rights violations and related crimes in Sri Lanka.
18 Viewers
