30 September 2021 09:07 am Views - 121
By Easwaran Rutnam
UN Secretary General (UN SG) António Guterres has documented allegations of reprisals and intimidation against some 240 individual members of civil society, activists and journalists in 45 countries, including Sri Lanka for cooperating with the UN.
A report documenting the incidents was presented to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva by UN Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights Ilze Brands Kehris yesterday.
On Sri Lanka, the report noted that the High Commissioner for Human Rights in her February 9, 2021 report to the Human Rights Council had said that “a pattern of intensified surveillance and harassment of civil society organizations, human rights defenders and victims appears to have intensified over the past year, including of those who supported the implementation of Human Rights Council resolution 30/1”.
The High Commissioner raised concern that this environment “is creating a chilling effect on civic and democratic space and leading to self-censorship” and urged “the authorities to immediately end all forms of surveillance, including intimidating visits by state agents and harassment against human rights defenders, lawyers, journalists, social actors and victims of human rights violations and their families, and to refrain from imposing further restrictive legal measures on legitimate civil society activity.”