{"id":35952,"date":"2012-03-26T23:11:03","date_gmt":"2012-03-26T23:11:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=35952"},"modified":"2012-04-02T01:03:24","modified_gmt":"2012-04-02T01:03:24","slug":"vitarana-plays-foolish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/vitarana-plays-foolish\/","title":{"rendered":"Vitarana Plays Foolish"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><strong>By <a href=\"http:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/\">Colombo Telegraph<\/a> &#8211;<\/strong><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\n<div id=\"attachment_35959\" style=\"width: 177px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/vitarana-plays-foolish\/thissa-vitharana-2\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-35959\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-35959\" class=\"size-full wp-image-35959\" title=\"Thissa-Vitharana\" src=\"http:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/Thissa-Vitharana1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"167\" height=\"185\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-35959\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Vitarana<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Senior Minister Tissa Vitharana yesterday said claims that Human Rights activists in Sri Lanka were being targetted and that their lives were in danger, had been \u201cmagnified\u201d he charges of human rights activists being targetted or that their lives are in danger has been blown out of proportion. There are various human rights activists who have been expressing their opinion freely abroad,\u201d he said<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>He said these people were expressing such views and opinions even when they were in this country and nothing had happened to them. Therefore, there is no substance to this charge, he said. Earlier last week, UN Human Rights chief Navi Pillay warned against any \u201creprisals\u2019\u201d to human rights activists.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\n<div>\u201cThere have been certain acts of violence directed against certain journalists and other activists. We deplore these acts and the Government will take stern action and prevent such incidents from happening in the future\u201d the Minister said. The Minister also said the gun culture prevailing in the country had largely contributed to these sporadic assaults.<\/div>\n<div>Meanwhile\u00a0Sri Lankan Foreign Minister GL Peiris has condemned a cabinet colleague for making public threats of violence.\u00a0He said no-one could condone or justify remarks made by Minster Mervyn Silva, who on Friday threatened to &#8220;break the limbs&#8221; of those who &#8220;betrayed&#8221; the country.<\/div>\n<div>\u201cI&#8217;m the one who chased Poddala Jayantha out of this country. I am telling you about this incident today. He went because of me,&#8221; Mervyn Silva said.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p> [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":36368,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,1],"tags":[2325,1657,2323,2324],"class_list":["post-35952","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-colombotelegraph","category-news","tag-gl-peiris-on-human-rights","tag-mervin-silva-and-thugs","tag-threats-against-human-rights-activists-in-sri-lanka","tag-tissa-vitarana-on-human-rights"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Vitarana Plays Foolish - 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\/vitarana-plays-foolish\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Vitarana Plays Foolish - 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