Test the knowledge of an average villager of his or her rights and we rest our case. It is this majority that tips the balance in favour of our rulers. It is this majority that our rulers call “the people.”

The recent shooting of our journalist Faraz Shauketaly, has rekindled the fire. Sri Lanka is definitely a most dangerous place for journalists. The Police yet again have been ordered by President Rajapaksa to investigate this crime. The Inspector General of Police has to do as ordered?

Faraz Shauketaly suffered gunshot injuries and was rushed to hospital a little over a week ago.  Faraz, who holds dual citizenship, in Sri Lanka and Britain, is a freelance journalist.  He is also a businessman who runs a hotel in Mount Lavinia.  The way the incident was ‘picked up’ by the media and others, including those who talk of human rights and media freedom speaks volumes of related politics.  Faraz was shot at by unidentified gunmen. 

The government’s Action Plan is not adequate. That is the verdict spelt out by the draft resolution against Sri Lanka, sponsored by the United States and supported by the European Union and others, possibly ‘big brother’ India too. The final resolution will be presented at the United Nations Human Rights Commission (UNHRC) sessions, scheduled to commence in Geneva, in less than 24 hours.

Still in the prime of life, Galle District UPFA parliamentarian and External Affairs Ministry Monitoring MP Sajin de Vass Gunawardena plunged into the cauldron of politics at a critical phase in the country's history. However, within a relatively limited space of time, he learned the fine art of politics. MP Gunawardena in an interview with the Sunday Observer said, “we follow a non-aligned foreign policy where we have equally good relations with every nation.

Mr. Lal Wickramatunga, has handed over through a friend living in the UK, a written complaint to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Ms. Navaneethan Pillay, that the former army commander, Mr. Sarath Fonseka should be held responsible for the assassination of his brother, the formereditor of ‘ Sunday Leader ‘Mr Lasantha Wikramatunga.

Mr. Lal Wikramatunga was speaking to the ‘The Independent’.

Mr Wikramatunga said he had communicated to the UN High Commissioner that President Mahinda Raj

Ambassador to the UN in New York Palitha Kohona and the permanent representatives of four other member states yesterday handed a report on Sri Lanka over to global body’s Secretary General Ban Ki Moon.

The submission, which Inner City Press says is believed to be a ‘contrary’ report was handed over to the UN Secretary General by Ambassador Kohona and Japan’s Permanent Representative Tsuneo Nishida, and Permanent Representatives Abulkalam Abdul Momen of Bangladesh and Simona Mirela Miculescu of Romania a

“No War Zone: The Killing Fields of Sri Lanka,” the culmination of three years of research by Channel 4, which will be shown for the first time next month in Geneva, to coincide with the U.N. Human Rights Council meeting. We publish below the original photographs of LTTEs Col. Ramesh killing.

T. Thurairajasingham, whose call sign was Romeo Sierra, and nom de guerre was Colonel Ramesh.

“This single murder, insignificant of itself, suggest the systematic, large-scale killing of prisoners – civi

The United Nations Human Rights Council session will commence in Geneva in Switzerland on Monday.

Spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Rupert Colville told Newsfirst that around ninety delegates will participate at the session.

He further said that member countries will decide on the action taken at the Human Rights Council.

Given the reassuring and conciliatory noises that had emerged from the foreign policy establishment in recent months, including statements that it had no intention of criticising Navi Pillay countering the then Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka in Geneva,1 it is likely that the establishment was rudely awoken from its deep coma by the vehemence of the High Commissioner’s report and the almost simultaneous appearance of an equally vehement US draft resolution to be tabled at the Human Rights Council a few weeks from now!

With the next sessions of the UN Human Rights Council fast approaching, there is much action by forces targeting Sri Lanka, with a rapid regurgitating of earlier charges against the country, by groups with a clear agenda of anti-Sri Lanka action. Amidst a lot of the old hat of unverified and unsubstantiated charged being leveled against those who defeated the LTTE in 2009, being given new tinsel dressings of authenticity, there are also new areas of attack that have emerged in the past few days.