Sri Lanka: Politics and Government
Katy Clark: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what recent reports he has received of the state of (a) emergency and (b) anti-terrorism laws in Sri Lanka. [76146]
Alistair Burt: We welcome the end of the state of emergency in Sri Lanka, but it remains unclear what this means in practice. The Sri Lankan Government have amended the Prevention of Terrorism Act to replace some of the powers that lapsed. We are especially concerned about the practice of prolonged detention without charge.
I raised these concerns when I met the Sri Lankan Foreign Minister on 23 September in New York. Our high commission in Colombo will continue to monitor the situation and to pursue this issue with the Government of Sri Lanka.
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A Joint Open Letter produced by NGOs from around the world to the Commonwealth Heads of Governments
25/10/2011
These blog postings do not necessarily represent the views of all members of the Advisory Council.Dear Commonwealth Heads of Governments,
This letter follows an earlier letter on this subject that many of us jointly wrote to Commonwealth Foreign Ministers, prior to their meeting in New York on 22 September 2011. In the absence of any public pronouncement by Foreign Ministers on this issue we have to assume that no decision has yet been taken to put in place a process for assessing the suitability of Sri Lanka’s candidature for hosting the 2013 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM). In this context, we recall your 2009 decision to defer Sri Lanka’s candidature as host and seriously urge you to consider a similar postponement at CHOGM 2011. Full Story>>>