UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay warned on Friday against reprisals against Sri Lankan activists, saying “threats and intimidation” had been carried out by Colombo in the run-up to a contested war crimes probe vote.
The UN Human Rights Council on Thursday adopted to the consternation of Colombo a US-led resolution demanding a probe into violations carried out in Sri Lanka’s battle against Tamil Tiger separatists during their war in 2009.
The run-up to the vote was marked by “an unprecedented and totally unacceptable level of threats, harassment and intimidation directed at Sri Lankan activists who had traveled to Geneva to engage in the debate, including by members of the 71-member official Sri Lankan government delegation,” Pillay said.
“There must be no reprisals against Sri Lankan human rights defenders in the aftermath of yesterday’s adoption by the Human Rights Council of a resolution on Sri Lanka,” Pillay said.
In Sri Lanka, media outlets have also been running a “continuous campaign of vilification, including naming and in many cases picturing activists, describing them as an ‘NGO gang’ and repeatedly accusing them of treason, mercenary activities and association with terrorism,” Pillay said.
“Some of these reports have contained barely veiled incitement and threats of retaliation,” she added.
Some were carried by state media outlets or filed by journalists accredited to the UN Human Rights Council session, Pillay said.
In one example, a video clip carried on a Web site showed Sri Lankan Member of Parliament Mervyn Silva accusing three activists of giving evidence against Sri Lanka at the council.
“If you get caught by me in Sri Lanka, I will break your limbs in public,” he told the three.
Meanwhile, the Sri Lankan envoy to Geneva also received an anonymous letter that UN security and the police are investigating, she said.
Later on Friday, a Sri Lankan diplomat told the UN Human Rights Council that her delegation was seeking “clarifications on allegations made by certain countries of threats to, and intimidation of, human rights defenders by members of this delegation.”
Sri Lanka had asked for details on those claims, but has “not been able to ascertain the veracity of the incidents,” the diplomat said.
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