{"id":107819,"date":"2013-09-27T15:27:43","date_gmt":"2013-09-27T09:57:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=107819"},"modified":"2013-10-03T00:20:16","modified_gmt":"2013-10-02T18:50:16","slug":"cwealth-giving-sri-lanka-carte-blanche-for-human-rights-abuses-ai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/cwealth-giving-sri-lanka-carte-blanche-for-human-rights-abuses-ai\/","title":{"rendered":"C&#8217;wealth Giving Sri Lanka Carte Blanche For Human Rights Abuses &#8211; AI"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Sri Lanka\u2019s disturbing human rights record means it should be barred from hosting a key Commonwealth summit in November or chairing the organization, Amnesty International said ahead of a key meeting of Commonwealth foreign ministers today.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_103047\" style=\"width: 251px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/un-and-commonwealth-must-now-act-to-fix-problems-highlighted-by-pillay-ai\/polly-truscott\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-103047\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-103047\" class=\" wp-image-103047 \" title=\"Polly Truscott\" src=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/Polly-Truscott.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"241\" height=\"256\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/Polly-Truscott.jpg 344w, https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/Polly-Truscott-281x300.jpg 281w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 241px) 100vw, 241px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-103047\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Polly Truscott<\/p><\/div>\n<p>The Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group &#8211; made up of foreign ministers and Secretary-General Kamalesh Sharma, who gather to address violations of the Commonwealth\u2019s fundamental values, including human rights &#8211; is meeting in New York today.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cToday\u2019s meeting is an opportunity for the Commonwealth to show some real leadership on human rights. The organization has been shamefully silent so far about Sri Lanka\u2019s human rights crisis\u2013 including the persistent lack of justice for past crimes and ongoing attacks on human rights defenders and other activists,\u201d said Polly Truscott, Amnesty International\u2019s Deputy Asia- Pacific Director.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cInstead of giving Sri Lanka carte blanche for human rights violations, Commonwealth leaders should be supporting calls for an independent and international investigation into alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity, and condemning reprisals against civil society still taking place.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Today\u2019s meeting comes less than two months ahead of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Colombo, after which Sri Lanka is set to serve as the Commonwealth\u2019s Chair for two years.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAllowing Sri Lanka to host CHOGM and then chair the Commonwealth would give the country a seal of approval that it does not deserve. The Commonwealth must think twice before allowing such a blow to its own credibility,\u201d said Truscott.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs Chair, Sri Lanka would be charged with helping the Secretary-General address violations of human rights in other Commonwealth countries \u2013 it\u2019s difficult to think of a bigger irony.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>There are credible allegations that the Sri Lankan military and Tamil Tigers armed group committed war crimes and crimes against humanity during the armed conflict ending in 2009. But Sri Lanka has resisted calls for an international and impartial investigation into the conflict, while its own domestic efforts have been wholly ineffective.<\/p>\n<p>Since the war\u2019s end, President Mahinda Rajapaksa has steered his country in what the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has described as \u201can increasingly authoritarian direction\u201d. The government has concentrated powers in its own hands and led an assault on dissent, harassing and attacking critics including journalists, human rights defenders and opposition politicians.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDespite repeated demands from the UN and others, the Sri Lankan government has not stopped violating people\u2019s rights. There\u2019s a huge risk of increased reprisals against activists and others in November around CHOGM. Sri Lanka is not a safe pair of hands for the Commonwealth,\u201d said Truscott.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p> [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":103047,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,1,6969,2375],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-107819","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-colombotelegraph","category-news","category-popular-stories","category-stories"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>C&#039;wealth Giving Sri Lanka Carte Blanche For Human Rights Abuses - AI - Colombo Telegraph<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/cwealth-giving-sri-lanka-carte-blanche-for-human-rights-abuses-ai\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"C&#039;wealth Giving Sri Lanka Carte Blanche For Human Rights Abuses - 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