FM strongly protests US State Department's Human Rights Report

Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama today (14th March 2008) called in the US Ambassador in Sri Lanka Robert Blake to register Sri Lanka's serious concerns about the recently released U.S. State Department's 2007 Country Report on Human Rights Practices in Sri Lanka.

The report presents a distorted view of the actual situation in Sri Lanka during the year 2007 and is unfortunately a litany of unsubstantiated allegations, innuendo and vituperative exaggerations.

It was noted that there was a suspicious similarity between the comments made in the report and the views expressed by those deliberately seeking to denigrate the Government of Sri Lanka. While Sri Lanka had concerns with respect to human rights in the late 2006 and early 2007, the government had taken a range of positive steps to address these concerns.

The Government was confident that the situation will continue to improve. Human rights is an important issue for the Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL).

The Minister who said the Foreign Ministry was in the process of preparing a detailed response on the issues raised in the U.S. State Department Report, went on to share Sri Lanka's objections to the conclusions of the State Department report.

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