In a statement delivered to the 28th session of the UN Human Rights Council, Danish Foreign Minister Martin Lindegaard highlighted victims of human rights abuses from around the world, including Sri Lanka.
See excerpts below:
"For a moment in January, we were all Charlie in solidarity with the victims of a horrific crime in Paris. A month later the world showed solidarity with the victims of a similar attack in Copenhagen,
"In the same spirit, the many hours of hectic work that lie before this Council in the coming weeks must be done in solidarity with - and with a constant focus on - the victims of human rights violations all around the world,
"Therefore, today, as I have the honour to address the Council as it starts its 28th session, I am not only Charlie. I am every individual being denied his or her human rights. I am the torture victim in a Syrian detention. I am the girl abducted and abused by Boko Haram. I am the Christian woman who has lost her family to the killing frenzy of Daesh in Iraq. I am the child in Gaza internally displaced by conflict. I am the Crimean Tatar persecuted by Russian authorities,
"I am the civilian taking shelter from incoming artillery in Debaltseve in Ukraine. I am the arbitrarily detained political activist in a Bahraini prison. I am the migrant worker in Qatar risking my life in hazardous working conditions. I am the LGBTI person waiting to be hung to death in Iran. I am the South Sudanese boy, abducted and forced to fight in a very brutal civil war. I am the Somali girl, who has fled my home in search for peace only to be abused by men of war,
"I am the stateless Rohingya being persecuted in Myanmar. I am the slave in the hellish political prison camps in North Korea. I am the civil war victim seeking truth and justice in Sri Lanka. I am the man on the death row in Belarus. I am the Jewish victim of extremist actions. I am the human rights activist who is beaten up for criticising my government. I am the young girl being denied the right to decide over my own body. I am the child who has no access to education. I am the immigrant who is not treated with human dignity,
"And I look to the Human Rights Council to raise awareness of my case and request that my perpetrators are held accountable.,
It is disheartening that I could have continued the list of victims on whom we need to focus our attention. To complete the list, I would have had to deny everyone else their right to speak. I believe many of us these days wake up with the feeling that the world - as eloquently put by the High Commissioner for Human Rights – is cartwheeling into a future more uncertain and unpredictable than ever before."
