Minister outlines progress at length:
Lankan delegation makes impact at UNHRC sessions
A member of the Sri Lankan delegation in Geneva said that if a minister had not been present at the current UN Human Rights Council sessions, Sri Lanka would have missed the opportunity to speak at length on its impressive progress so far.
He said the time slot for an official delegation to address
the session would have been a mere two minutes whereas the speech by Minister
Mahinda Samarasinghe lasted around 20 minutes, covering all aspects of
achievements in the country after terrorism was defeated. He said a number of countries had congratulated the Sri Lankan delegation following the speech and it would definitely have had a great impact on the misinformation and disinformation campaign of the LTTE propagandists and their supporters, which becomes intense during each UNHRC session in March.
Sri Lanka’s Permanent Representative in Geneva Ravinatha Aryasinha protested vehemently against the screening of a third documentary ‘No Fire Zone: The Killing Fields of Sri Lanka’ by Channel 4’s Callum Macrae on the sidelines of the HRC sessions.
In his protest to the organisers, the Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, Ambassador Aryasinha said that the attempt was a ‘part of a cynical, concerted and orchestrated campaign strategically driven and aimed at influencing the debate on Sri Lanka.’
Similar documentaries by the same Director were screened by HRW and AI during the 2011 and 2012 Council sessions. Ambassador Aryasinha had said that their action was ‘clearly motivated by collateral political considerations’.
The Ambassador met HRC President Ambassador Remigiusz Achilles Henczel earlier this week to lodge an official protest.
During the meeting and in a letter delivered later, Ambassador Henczel has disassociated the Council from the screening of the film.
The Sri Lankan envoy had said that it should be noted that the first ever UK preview of this film was screened at the third anniversary celebrations of the Global Tamil Forum (GTF) on February 27.
“The GTF is a well-known pro-LTTE lobby and the fact that the director of the film saw it fit to preview it on such an occasion clearly exposes that these people have been heavily influenced by the pro-LTTE lobby propaganda and its skewed views on development in Sri Lanka.”
The documentary was screened at the UN premises on Friday.
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