| As Sri Lanka Questions Journalist
Nilanthan, As UN Guterres Keeps Using
Troops, Bans Press
By Matthew
Russell Lee, Patreon
Video
BBC
- Guardian
UK - Honduras
- CJR -
PFT
UN GATE, July 14
– The increasing corruption of
the United Nations under
Secretary General Antonio
Guterres, and of the UN
Correspondents Association he
works with to intimidate and
then rough up and ban
the investigative Press, has
been made clear today in a
statement by former Ambassador
of Sri Lanka Palitha Kohona,
who has been accused of war
crimes in the White Flags
Killings, see below.
Now in July
2021, officers with the
Batticaloa district’s
Terrorism Investigation
Division, a branch of the Sri
Lankan police, interrogated
Selvakumar Nilanthan, a
freelance Tamil journalist and
the secretary of the
Batticaloa District Tamil
Journalists Association, a
local press freedom group, for
about three hours, according
to the Tamil Guardian, a copy
of authorities’ July 10
summons to the journalist, and
a tweet by Journalists for
Democracy in Sri Lanka, a
local human rights
group. Officers
questioned Nilanthan about his
income sources, and demanded
the login details of his
Facebook, WhatsApp, email, and
bank accounts, according to
the Tamil Guardian. They also
asked him if he supported the
Liberation Tigers of Tamil
Eelam, a banned group that the
government considers a
terrorist organization,
according to that report and
the human rights group.
Authorities told Nilanthan
that he may be summoned for
another interrogation, the
Tamil Guardian reported.
Back on
Feb 2, this call: "The United
Nations Peacekeeping
department should suspend all
deployments from Sri Lanka
following the latest report of
the UN human rights body which
warns that the independence
and credibility of the body
tasked with vetting the troops
had been fundamentally eroded1
. “The UN Department of Peace
Operations has a legal duty to
ensure due diligence before
deploying troops,” said the
Executive Director of the
International Truth and
Justice Project, Yasmin Sooka.
“The report of the UN High
Commissioner for Human Rights
confirms that New York is not
in a position now to certify
that the Sri Lankan troops
have been properly vetted and
screened and must urgently
take steps to move the
screening process back to
Geneva.” Under the current
arrangement the Human Rights
Commission of Sri Lanka
carries out the vetting of
troops in Colombo. The
appointment of Shavendra Silva
to Army Commander in 2019
triggered the UN’s
announcement that it was
suspending deployment of all
Sri Lankan peacekeepers,
except where operations could
be endangered... The UN
Department of Peacekeeping
Operations said it would
suspend future Sri Lankan army
deployments, “except where
suspension would expose UN
operations to serious
operational risk”. a quarter
of Sri Lankan peacekeepers -
namely those deployed in
Lebanon who would be replaced
by troops from other countries
. In addition, departing Sri
Lankan contingents were
photographed repeatedly
saluting an alleged war
criminal, Shavendra Silva, at
farewell parades . This is in
spite of the widespread
international criticism of the
appointment of Shavendra Silva
to Army Commander in 2019.
Later in February 2020, the US
Government made public its
designation of Shavendra Silva
and his family for alleged
gross violations of human
rights10. Shavendra Silva was
subsequently given the
additional responsibility of
acting Chief of Defence Staff
– the top most military
position - and was recently
promoted to the rank of four
star General." The UN has
failed on this, and Guterres
keeps censoring.
What will
CPJ, RSF et al do? Watch
this site.
***
Your
support means a lot. As little as $5 a month
helps keep us going and grants you access to
exclusive bonus material on our Patreon
page. Click
here to become a patron.
Feedback:
Editorial [at] innercitypress.com
SDNY Press Room 480, front cubicle
500 Pearl Street, NY NY 10007 USA
Past
& future at UN: Room S-303, UN,
NY 10017 USA
Mail: Box 20047, Dag
Hammarskjold Station NY NY 10017
Reporter's mobile (and weekends):
718-716-3540
Other, earlier Inner City Press are
listed here,
and some are available in the ProQuest
service, and now on Lexis-Nexis.
Copyright 2006-2020 Inner City
Press, Inc. To request reprint or other
permission, e-contact Editorial [at]
innercitypress.com
|
,
