The Australian director at Human Rights Watch has called upon the government to “show leadership” on human rights in Sri Lanka, by co-sponsoring a resolution at the UN Human Rights Council, which is due to be voted on this week.

Writing in the Guardian, Elaine Pearson said Australia, which is bidding for a seat on the council in 2018, has been “shamefully non committal” and urged it to use “public and private pressure” on Sri Lanka, including co-sponsoring a resolution.

Over 300 protestors in Chennai demanded that the Indian government support an international independent investigation into genocide in Sri Lanka, at the United Nations Human Rights Council this week.

The International Crisis Group said the Sri Lankan government’s claims of demilitarisation in the North have been made to “mislead the domestic and international community”, in their latest blog post on Tuesday.

Entitled “The Forever War?: Military Control in Sri Lanka’s North”, the piece notes that in the face of international pressure over demilitarisation, the Sri Lankan government “narrative is largely fictional” adding that it has “draconian control over nearly every facet of civilian life” in the North.

The leader of the opposition in Sri Lanka shrugged off the upcoming resolution at the UN Human Rights Council this month, questioning the government in calling for support against it earlier this week.

Speaking at an election rally in the South, UNP leader Ranil Wickremasinghe told the crowd,

“The UNHRC cannot take Sri Lanka to international criminal courts and it cannot impose sanctions on Sri Lanka. Then why is all this fuss?”

Sinhalese students protested against the cancellation of lectures, angered that they were put on hold indefinitely following attacks on Tamil students last week, reported Uthayan.

Students hold placards, most of which are in Sinhalese Pictures: Uthayan

This week the text of the UN Human Rights Council resolution on Sri Lanka will be finalised and voted on by member states. Amid the intense deliberations of the past weeks in Geneva, the crux of the problem in the island has been laid bare. Even as diplomatic missions, international NGOs, numerous Tamil actors and some Sinhala ones have campaigned for mandating an international independent investigation into Sri Lanka’s wartime atrocities and ongoing abuses, the arguments of those calling for a more tolerant and accommodative approach have been thoroughly discredited by Colombo’s own conduct: not only has the government rejected out of hand calls for accountability for some of the worst atrocities of the century, it has, in a direct snub to the UNHRC, intensified its repression and terrorising of the Tamil people.

The opposition spokeswoman for Australian foreign affairs, Tanya Pulbersek, today, reiterating that domestic investigation mechanisms in Sri Lanka had failed, called for Australia to support their ‘usual allies’ and back calls for an international investigation.

Urging the Australian government to support the UNHRC resolution, she said,

“Our call for the Australian government is to support the draft resolution before the Human Rights Council is to reduce violations and abuses and put us in company with all of our usual allies when it comes to foreign affairs decision making.”