{"id":3113,"date":"2014-03-27T14:20:05","date_gmt":"2014-03-27T08:50:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pakistanhc.lk\/?p=3113"},"modified":"2020-01-09T00:17:17","modified_gmt":"2020-01-08T18:47:17","slug":"statement-by-pakistan-on-ohchr-report-about-sri-lanka","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pakistanhc.lk\/?p=3113","title":{"rendered":"Statement by Pakistan on OHCHR Report about Sri Lanka"},"content":{"rendered":"<p align=\"center\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.pakistanhc.lk\/2014\/03\/statement-by-pakistan-on-ohchr-report-about-sri-lanka\/zamir-akram\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-3114\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-3114\" title=\"Zamir Akram\" src=\"http:\/\/www.pakistanhc.lk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/Zamir-Akram-300x151.jpg\" alt=\"Statement by Pakistan on OHCHR Report about Sri Lanka\" width=\"300\" height=\"151\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino; font-size: 14px;\"><strong>Statement by\u00a0<\/strong><strong>Ambassador<\/strong><strong>\u00a0Zamir Akram,\u00a0<\/strong><strong>Permanent<\/strong><strong>\u00a0Representative of Pakistan\u00a0to the United Nations, Geneva\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino; font-size: 14px;\">on<\/span><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino; font-size: 14px;\"><strong>OHCHR Report on Sri Lanka<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino; font-size: 14px;\"><strong>25<sup>th<\/sup>\u00a0Session of the Human Rights Council<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino; font-size: 14px;\"><strong>26 March 2014<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14px; font-family: georgia, palatino;\"><strong>Mr. President,<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino; font-size: 14px;\">My delegation believes in a culture of engagement for ensuring the promotion and protection of human rights. We believe that country-specific initiatives are confrontational and counter-productive and seriously undermine the spirit of cooperation and coordination on important human rights issues.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino; font-size: 14px;\">We believe that the High Commissioner\u2019s Report contained in document A\/HRC\/25\/23 is not balanced and some of the elements including recommendation to establish an international inquiry mechanism exceed the mandate granted by HRC resolution 22\/1. We are also disappointed over the discriminat<\/span><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino; font-size: 14px;\">or<\/span><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino; font-size: 14px;\">y approach followed by the OHCHR with regard to placement of Sri Lanka\u2019s comments in response to the report on the extranet.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino; font-size: 14px;\">Mr. President,<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino; font-size: 14px;\">\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino; font-size: 14px;\">Sri Lanka is a country with excellent democratic credentials. It has successfully overcome 30 years of brutal terrorism by the LTTE with external support. Now is the time for international community to help the people of Sri Lanka to heal their wounds and not penalize them for defeating the LTTE at the behest\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino; font-size: 14px;\">o<\/span><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino; font-size: 14px;\">\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino; font-size: 14px;\">f people who still continue to align themselves with these terrorist forces.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino; font-size: 14px;\">There is also a need to acknowledge the commitment and cooperation, extended by the government of Sri Lanka to the entire human rights machinery.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino; font-size: 14px;\">Since the end of the terrorist conflict in May 2009, Sri Lanka has continued to regularly and voluntarily engage with the Council as well as the Missions based in Geneva on the progress in their reconciliation process. Pakistan lauds the progress achieved by Sri Lanka in implementing the National Plan of Action (NPOA) and recommendations of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino; font-size: 14px;\">As part of this continued engagement, the High Commissioner undertook a week-long official visit to Sri Lanka from 25 to 31 August 2013 on the invitation of the Government. The Government arranged a comprehensive programme and provided unfettered access during the visit, a fact she herself has acknowledged.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino; font-size: 14px;\">The OHCHR as well as members of the HRC must refrain from advocating a course of action that will exacerbate the challenges that the Sri Lankan people are trying to overcome after 30 years of terrorist and separatist violence.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino; font-size: 14px;\">The international community should act as a facilitator for peace and stability and be part of the solution rather than part of the problem. There is a dire need to comprehend and cooperatively address the enormous challenges being faced by Sri Lanka rather than penalizing the country for rooting out terrorism from its soil.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino; font-size: 14px;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino; font-size: 14px;\">Thank you.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Statement by\u00a0Ambassador\u00a0Zamir Akram,\u00a0Permanent\u00a0Representative of Pakistan\u00a0to the United Nations, Geneva\u00a0 on OHCHR Report on Sri Lanka 25th\u00a0Session of the Human Rights Council 26 March 2014 Mr. President, My delegation believes in a culture of engagement for ensuring the promotion and protection [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3114,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,63],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pakistanhc.lk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3113"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pakistanhc.lk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pakistanhc.lk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pakistanhc.lk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pakistanhc.lk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3113"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.pakistanhc.lk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3113\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8346,"href":"https:\/\/www.pakistanhc.lk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3113\/revisions\/8346"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pakistanhc.lk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3114"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pakistanhc.lk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pakistanhc.lk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pakistanhc.lk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}