Geneva, 5 thousand Sri Lankans protest against UN human rights resolution
Colombo ( AsiaNews) - More than 5 thousand Sri Lankans demonstrated yesterday outside the of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) headquarters in Geneva (Switzerland) , against the UN resolution on Sri Lanka. The protest was organized by representatives of the Sri Lankan community in Europe under the auspices of the organization Unity for the United Sri Lanka.
Sri Lankans living in Italy,
France, Germany, Switzerland, United Kingdom, Norway, Sweden and the
Netherlands took part in the event, regardless of their political affiliation. The
rally was also attended by some citizens of the former Ceylon in Australia and
Canada.
The
protesters handed a letter addressed to Michael Mǿller, UN director general in
Geneva, and Navi Pillai, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (a Sri Lankan
citizen, ed.) The
document urges UNHRC to grant "an appropriate period of time" to Sri
Lanka to "solve its internal problems without the interference of
countries that are influenced by the Tamil diaspora in the world".
The
25th session of the UNHRC will close on 28 March in Geneva. The
United States and United Kingdom are the main supporters of a new resolution on
human rights violations in Sri Lanka, as happened twice
before in the past. The
previous measures highlighted the government's responsibility for the crimes carried
out in the final
stages of the civil war.
On
several occasions President of Sri Lanka Mahinda Rajapaksa has spoken out against
these UN resolutions. In
contrast, some members
of the local Catholic Church and human rights activists have been
calling for the intervention of the international community on violations that
continue to occur on the Asian island.
11/08/2017 20:05
24/01/2007