Sri Lanka says UN human rights report a ‘grave distortion and misinterpretation’ of reality

Responding to the oral report on Sri Lanka at the first meeting of the 54th Regular Session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva on Monday,

Responding to the oral report on Sri Lanka at the first meeting of the 54th Regular Session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva on Monday, Sri Lanka has rejected the report and its recommendations, claiming that is does not reflect the actual situation in Sri Lanka, and instead gravely distorted and misinterpreted the ground situation within the country.

Speaking further in this regard, the Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka to the United Nations in Geneva, Himalee Arunatilaka noted that it is “regrettable” that the Office of the Human Commissioner of Human Rights (OCHCR) has “chosen to ignore the democratic resilience of the country and its institutions demonstrated in the past year”.

She stated that Sri Lanka remains deeply concerned about the ever-increasing mandate of the OCHCR, in making sweeping and intrusive comments on all aspects of economic, financial, political, electoral, domestic, budgetary and development policies, adding that the nation strongly objects to “pronouncements on policy matters that are essentially domestic for any sovereign country and are outside the framework of this council”.