Speaking on the day of Sri Lanka's UPR at the UN Human Rights Council, Amnesty International's Sri Lanka expert, Yolanda Foster, said that Sri Lanka's promises on human rights should not be accepted by the international community.
Foster said,
“Sri Lanka has been making empty promises about human rights for decades. This was made clear by a number of countries which questioned Sri Lanka’s lack of progress in ending human rights violations during the review,”
“Three years after the end of the civil war, the government continues to stifle dissent through threats and harassment, and has failed to take steps to end enforced disappearances and extrajudicial executions.”
“Four years after the UN’s first review of human rights in Sri Lanka, there has been virtually no progress – as shown today - on any of the commitments the government made to end arbitrary detentions,”
“The persistent lack of justice in these cases is shocking and flies in the face of repeated promises by the government for the past six years that it would investigate them properly. Victims’ families won’t believe the government until some practical action is taken. As a very basic first step the 2007 commission’s findings should be made public,”
“Why did it toke so long for the Sri Lankan authorities to order an investigation into cases this grave, and what will happen to the police inquiry when international interest sparked by the UPR dies down?”
In a statement, the rights group further added,
'Human rights defenders have told Amnesty International about a climate a fear in Sri Lanka in which the state does nothing to protect them from threats.
Following a UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) resolution in March 2012 calling on Sri Lanka to address violations of international law during the civil war, government officials and state-run media lashed out at human rights activists. They were called “traitors” and threatened with physical harm by the Public Relations Minister, prompting the UN to denounce the threats and call for an investigation.'
