27 February 2020 08:12 pm
Following Sri Lanka’s decision to withdraw from the UN Resolution, the Amnesty International (AI) today called on the Human Rights Council to establish an international accountability mechanism.
In a statement, the AI said an international accountability mechanism needed to ensure the victims of decades-long conflict get the justice that is owed to them.
Thyagi Ruwanpathirana, South Asia Researcher at Amnesty International, said Sri Lanka’s decision to go back on its commitments to the Human Rights Council requires a robust response by the Council, including steps towards the creation of an accountability mechanism to ensure the victims of the nearly three-decade long conflict get the justice that is owed to them.
In a statement, the AI said the new Sri Lankan Government has said it will pursue a national effort to achieve sustainable peace through an inclusive, domestically designed and executed reconciliation and accountability process.
“Sri Lanka has a long history of failed domestic accountability mechanisms. Their successive failures have bitterly disappointed victims of human rights abuses and violations, many of whom have waited years for an outcome that has failed to materialize. They need an international mechanism that is both trusted and can be effective,” Ruwanpathirana said.
“The limited but significant gains made in recent years are at risk of being rolled back, even as we see space shrinking for civil society in Sri Lanka over recent months,” she said.
The AI said it has documented several cases of harassment, intimidation and attacks on human rights organizations, media outlets and journalists in Sri Lanka in January and February 2020.