UN vote: Will ‘break limbs’ of activists,says Lanka minister

A senior Sri Lankan minister has threatened to “break the limbs” of three right activists who he claims campaigned against Colombo at the recently concluded UNHRC session.

The minister,Mervyn Silva,said the activists — Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu,Nimalka Fernando and Sunila Abeysekera,all journalists — had lied at the UNHRC session which passed a US resolution condemning Colombo for violating the rights of its Tamil citizens during the war with LTTE. “I would break the limbs of journalists who went abroad and made statements against the country,” Silva told a rally at Kiribathgoda.

Silva also claimed that it was he who forced the former convener of Sri Lanka’s free media movement to leave the country.

UNHRC chief Navi Pillay warned against such reprisals. Noting that “threats and intimidation had been carried out in the run-up to the vote”,she said “there must be no reprisals against Sri Lankan human rights defenders in the aftermath of adoptions of the resolution”.