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Justice C. G. Weeramantry, former senior vice president of the International Court of Justice and the Senior Most Retired Judge in Sri Lanka, said yesterday it was essential that a tribunal deciding on the rights of any citizen must consist of persons who are totally uncommitted before the hearing.

An Open Letter from Mr. Chandra Jayaratne, former Chairman of the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce.

Stephen Woodworth, Member of Parliament for Kitchener Centre, has expressed renewed concern over human rights violation in Sri Lanka in light of recent reports of violent clashes on the University of Jaffna campus between Tamil students and security forces.

On Monday the 10th of December 2012; the United Nations Human Rights Day, a large number of people braved the freezing British winter conditions and gathered in front of the Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) in order to highlight the serious human rights violations faced by Tamil people and to show their outrage at the United Nations andthe UN Secretary General (UNSG), Ban Ki-Moon for their failure to protect innocent Tamil people during the genocidal war against them and to urge the UN to act now to stop the continuing genocide of Tamils in the Island known as Sri Lanka.

Once a ruler told one of his country’s citizens,

Mr. Thinking citizen, you have told me some very beautiful principles. For example, you have said that any inquiry against anyone must be fair, and you have explained what fairness means. But you do not seem to understand that I do not like principles.

The prevailing issue of Chief Justice Dr Shirani Bandaranayake will not end with just her removal, but also with Sri Lanka losing its Commonwealth membership, says Opposition Leader Ranil Wickramasinghe. As a country which has accepted Commonwealth principles, the government is faced with the question of whether it will continue to comply with those principles or not, he said.

It was recently reported that Sri Lanka intended to deploy suspected war criminal, General Shavendra Silva, to South Africa to take up the post of deputy ambassador.

Right now at a UN meeting in Dubai, authoritarian regimes are pushing for full governmental control of the Internet in a binding global treaty -- if they succeed, the internet could become less open, more costly and much slower. We have only 2 days to stop them.

Number of major media outlets published reports on Sri Lanka raising taxes for Indian vehicles and providing favourable conditions to other countries. Some reports hints of India exerting diplomatic pressure in order to reduce the taxes and some others criticise the government inactivity over the issue.

Intellectuals for Human Rights (IfHR) in its annual Human Rights (HR) report stresses that international pressure is looked-for to arrest seriously increasing HR violation in Sri Lanka. The report was released on December 10, International HR day, and the report is a review of human rights situation of the country over the period from December 10, 2011 to December 10 2012.

Today [10-12-2012] is International Human Rights Day. I am currently in Strasbourg, France, where the European parliament, Council of Europe and other important European institutions are based. My foremost purpose in this mission is to attend a “UNITED Study Session Against Racist Propaganda and Hate Speech online”. It is organized by UNITED Against Racism and hosted by the Council of Europe.

Fact sheet

(This document contains recent developments affecting independence of judiciary Sri Lanka)

01.Threatening the Mannar Magistrate and attack on the Manner Magistrate Court and High Court

Power and Energy Ministry Secretary, M.C.M. Ferdinando has directed the heads of all institutions affiliated to the Ministry to not give any advertisements to the Lakbima Sinhala newspapers or Lakbima News English newspaper.

Next Saturday, the Bar Association will meet to discuss the resolution of non-cooperation with anyone who may be chosen to be the next Chief Justice in the event that the incumbent Chief Justice is impeached.