India Backs Sri Lanka At U.N. Human Rights Review

India fully backed Sri Lanka’s case at the UN human rights review in Geneva, thus helping the island nation obtain a balanced appraisal from the world body on Tuesday (20).

The appraisal has raised hopes in Sri Lanka that it will be re-elected to the UN Human Rights Council by the General Assembly in New York today despite aggressive lobbying by pro-LTTE groups and ill-informed International NGOs.

While most of the Western countries attacked Sri Lanka, India had only mentioned only the positive aspects of the Sri Lankan situation, it was reported.

The Indian delegate, Rajiv Kumar Chander, described Sri Lanka as a “close and friendly neighbor,” which maintained its sovereignty and territorial integrity, and played an “active role” in the Human Rights Council.

The Indian delegate said Sri Lanka’s cooperation with the UN system had been noteworthy and acknowledged that the argument that the country’s laws were compatible with international conventions in human and labor rights.

He also praised Colombo for appointing a steering group to draft a bill of rights.

A report from Sri Lanka’s Permanent Mission in Geneva said that over half the 56 delegations that participated in the review praised Colombo for protecting human rights while fighting terrorism. They were impressed with Sri Lanka’s frankness about its inadequacies and appreciated its desire to build capacity with UN help, according to Mission sources.

Sri Lanka was able to justify its rejection of a UN proposal to set up a monitoring station on the island to report to the Office of the UN High Commissioner of Human Rights.

Meanwhile Minister for Human Rights, Mahinda Samarasinghe, said the need of the hour was not UN monitoring but indigenous capacity-building with international help.

Source: Government of Sri Lanka

Net News Publisher