Sri Lanka Blocked from Re-Election to UN Human Rights Council

Human Rights Watch led a successful effort to defeat Sri Lanka's bid for re-election to the United Nations Human Rights Council. Sri Lanka's rights record has gravely deteriorated in the past two years. Human Rights Watch has documented skyrocketing rates of abductions and "disappearances," hundreds of extrajudicial killings, widespread torture of detainees, and complicity in the use of child soldiers. In March, we issued a hard-hitting report on the government's responsibility for hundreds of young men who have been abducted or "disappeared" and are now feared dead. Working in a coalition with Sri Lankan non-governmental organizations and other partners, we publicized Sri Lanka's dismal human rights record, sent letters to governments around the world, mounted an elaborate website, and recruited Nobel Peace Prize winners Desmond Tutu, Adolfo Perez Esquivel, and Jimmy Carter to add their voices to our campaign. The ballot defeat for Sri Lanka, which lobbied aggressively for re-election to the Council, reinforces the Council's strict membership standards.