A UN spokesperson has stressed that the work done by Navi Pillay while she was in Sri Lanka has the full support of the United Nations.

Associate Spokesperson for the Secretary-General, Farhan Haq, was responding to a question about the intimidation of witnesses that spoke to the UN Human Rights Commissioner, during a press briefing.

“[D]uring the visit of Navi Pillay to Sri Lanka, she said it in her exit press conference [...] that witnesses who spoke to her… who sought to speak to her were being intimidated and harassed immediately after, and she said the UN takes this very seriously, so I asked you about a specific case of a human rights defender who said that he was visited in his home at midnight by the Government after speaking with Navi Pillay, and I wanted to know whether the Secretariat has any comment on the intimidation of people for speaking to the UN,” a journalist asked.

In response, Farhan Haq said:

“Certainly, we believe that no one should face intimidation for speaking to the United Nations. We also encourage respect for the work of all human rights defenders. And we, needless to say, we respect… we fully support the work that Navanethem Pillay was doing while she was on the ground in Sri Lanka. We may have more to say on this down the line, but for now, basically, those are the standard principles.”