Demonstrations against UN report

United Nations: Following demonstrations against a UN report on possible war crimes in Sri Lanka during the final battle against LTTE, the world body has said that people have the right to protest peacefully.

"It’s everybody’s right to demonstrate and to do so peacefully. That appears to have been the case on May 1," Martin Nesirky, UN spokesperson, told journalists yesterday.

"We’ve said repeatedly that we have heard what’s being said publicly, that we have offered on more than one occasion for the Government’s response. Formal response to be published alongside the report," he added.

Demonstrations were held in Colombo against the recently released UN report, which outlines allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity against the government and Tamil Tigers.

"The panel’s determination of credible allegations reveals a very different version of the final stages of the war than that maintained to this day by the government," the report said.

On May 1, hundreds took to the street in response to a call by Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa to rally against the report.

The UN has said that it will publish any government response to the report.

"And that offer still stands," Nesirky said. "Should we receive an official response, we’ll distribute it in the same way that we did the report."