Thank you so much to all of you who took part in Monday’s twitter action. Amnesty International, Amnesty International India, and ourselves sent out tweets just before and during the Government of Sri Lanka’s speech that were then retweeted 331 times. Others, including the Federation of Chilean Jewish Students, Portuguese groups, NGOs and “the Elders” then sent tweets – meaning that of the 141 original #HRC19 tweets sent during the speech 138 were linked to our campaign, and of the total 424 tweets addressed to the Human Rights Council throughout the remainder of the day 383 were about Sri Lanka.
I’m told it was to be picked up by various media around the world and will let you know when I have details. One of our activists, who asked to remain anonymous because of the risk of retaliation, spoke on the BBC world service about the campaign (at 41:11) – to an audience of anything up to 40 million spread over every country on the planet. So a massive thank you to everyone who helped. Thanks to you the world heard from all Sri Lankans and not just those that support the government.
In addition we thought you might be interested to read:
A Sri Lankan group who wanted to remain anonymous for their own protection has asked us to make available their report in which they discredit the numbers for war dead that the Sri Lankan military have come up with. International Crisis Group also wrote an insightful blog in the same vein.
Fear of retaliation is growing in Sri Lanka – as the government cracks down on anyone who might be helping the international human rights campaign. But Sri Lankans still want to get their story out – and so various other groups have also passed us documents. We know who they are, and we know they are credible, but for their sake we will not pass that information on. Over the last two days, in addition to the report above, we received:
– A statement discrediting many of the claims in the Sri Lankan Government’s speech
– A disturbing report of violent robberies taking place in the north (seemingly with the complicity of the army)
Desmond Tutu and former President of Ireland and Human Rights Commissioner Mary Robinson wrote a superb editorial for the Guardian on Sri Lanka
We were in the Independent talking about the Human Rights Council.
Inner City Press continued to report on our to-and-fro with the IMF
There was great news as we found out Shavendra Silva had been barred from taking up his post on a UN peacekeeping committee – look out for a piece on that coming soon to our blog
And tragic news as we learnt of Marie Colvin’s passing – we wrote this tribute to her and we are also looking into other fitting ways to honour her.