Addressing the UN Human Rights Council during the general debate on Friday, Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam, the leader of the TNPF who was representing the NGO International Educational Development, called for "we call for the establishment of a transitional administration, under international supervision, in the North and East of Sri Lanka – the traditional homeland of the Tamils – as an urgent measure to stop the on-going destruction of the Tamil people."

See here. Reproduced in full below:

'International Educational Development has followed the progress of the UPR since its inception. Now, in its second cycle we note a decided failure of some States to implement the recommendations of the first review - as is glaringly apparent in the second review of Sri Lanka.

The review of Sri Lanka also demonstrates the paucity of opportunities for a people, such as the Tamil people, who identify as a collective political entity – that is as a Nation - based on historical independence, ethnicity, language and customs to be heard and taken into account. Their genuine grievances and aspirations are reduced to mere individual human rights problems rather than the destruction of their Nation. Sadly, except for one statement made by Austria concerning the rape of Tamil women, the Tamils as a people are not even named—the UPR is “de-Tamilized” to the point that, anyone not fully cognizant of the facts of the 65 year long Tamil-Sinhala conflict would not even know who is to be a party to “reconciliation.”

Addressing the UN Human Rights Council during Sri Lanka's UPR review, Mario Arulthas of the NGO Liberation called on the Council "to establish an independent, international Commission of Inquiry (COI).

See here. Reproduced in full below:

Thank you Mr. President, and the working group for facilitating Sri Lanka’s Universal Periodic Review.

Sri Lanka’s first UPR in 2008 began shortly before the height of the armed conflict: a period in which a UN Panel of Experts found credible allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity. An estimated 70,000 Tamil civilians are believed to have been killed in a matter of months during this time period, primarily attributed to the actions of the Sri Lankan military.

Nearly 4 years later, giving the government of Sri Lanka “time and space” for domestic processes has failed to advance peace or reconciliation in the traditionally Tamil North and East of Sri Lanka.

Addressing the UN Human Rights Council during Sri Lanka's UPR review session, the US ambassador Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe expressed disappointment at the overwhelming rejection of recommendations by Sri Lanka.

In statement, Donahoe said:

'We welcome the Government’s statement of its intention to accept recommendations to combat gender-based violence, to carry out an independent and credible investigation into the allegations of violations of human rights and international humanitarian law, and to strengthen the independence of institutions, including the Human Rights Commission, Police Commission, and Election Commission.

During the review, a number of States called for the implementation of the recommendations of Sri Lanka’s own Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC).  We are disappointed that the Government rejected all UPR recommendations from States that called upon it to implement the LLRC recommendations.

Further, the Sri Lankan delegation attempted to reframe Sri Lanka’s human rights commitments in terms of the government’s National Plan of Action, which does not address the broad spectrum of recommendations put forward by the LLRC report, and by lobbying other delegations to revise their UPR recommendations to exclude reference to the LLRC report after they had been orally presented.

Major changes were made to the substance of recommendations after the interactive dialogue. This is inconsistent with the transparent, interactive character of the UPR. 

The Tamil Nadu government has ordered indefinite closure of colleges across the state in response to students of more than 40 colleges joining calls for a war crimes investigation in Sri Lanka.

University examinations have also been postponed indefinitely.

See the Times of India for full report.

Human Rights Watch slammed Sri Lanka's rejection of nearly half of all proposed UPR recommendations, including one that was to implement the government's own LLRC recommendations.

See here for full statement. Extract reproduced below:

Building on a previous report published late last year - 'Returnees at Risk: Detention and Torture in Sri Lanka', Tamils Against Genocide (TAG) published their latest report on Wednesday: 'Activist Intimidation: Surveillance and Intimidation of Tamil Diaspora Activists and their Supporters'.

Analysing afresh data collected from the 'Returnees at Risk' report, this new report includes five interviews with diaspora activists conducted in January 2013, as well as a further eight successful asylum appeal determinations.

Speaking to Tamil Guardian, Henrietta Briscoe of TAG said,

"Our report shows that the government of Sri Lanka is not only committing egregious human rights violations against Tamils in Sri Lanka.. disappearances, torture and so on. It's also increasingly hostile towards foreign countries where significant Tamil populations live, in particular Europe, the United States and Canada."

"We now have evidence of surveillance carried out in Europe, the data from which is used to target for torture persons returning to Sri Lanka from abroad. It's now a global problem and we hope the UN Human Rights Council will take note of that in this and following sessions."

See here. Extract of the report's Executive Summary reproduced below:

'The GoSL defines ‘traitor’ and ‘terrorist’ broadly to include both those who call for an independent international process of accountability for the crimes committed during the Sri Lankan conflict and human rights abuses since the end of the conflict, and those who are considered to bring Sri Lanka into international disrepute, such as asylum seekers and protesters. Commensurate with its assessment of the threat, the GoSL allocates resources to collecting (both through surveillance and interrogations) and then acting upon that threat. Those accounts of interrogations under torture that are detailed in our data sets reveal the information requirements of GoSL officials.

An extensive and noteworthy list of civil society activists from the North-East have called for the draft resolution currently being discussed at the UN Human Rights Council to be "revisited", "revised" and "strengthened", and be used as an "opportunity to correct the mistakes of 2012 [UNHRC resolution 19/2]".

The appeal, released on the 10th March, concluded in the hope "that the upcoming resolution in the 22nd session of the UNHRC will help the Tamil people climb out of the precarious situation that they are in at present". 

See here. Reproduced in full below:

'Appeal from the Tamil Civil Society to the International Community regarding the upcoming resolution in the UNHRC on Sri Lanka

This appeal, signed by civil society activists who live and work in the North and East of Sri Lanka, seeks to state our position with regard to the resolution on Sri Lanka to be tabled at the 22nd sessions of the UN Human Rights Council. We understand that the resolution will seek to provide more time to the Government of Sri Lanka to implement the recommendations contained in the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission and that it will fall short of calling for an international independent investigation to hold to account those responsible for the Crime of Genocide, War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity. If this resolution would contain only the above and no further, in our opinion, it would be truly unfortunate.

A recently formed advocacy movement, the Dead And Missing Persons Parents' Front (MPPF), condemned the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) for a favorable attitude towards Tamils and for supporting terrorist organisations in Sri Lanka.

In a statement the All Party Parliamentary Group for Tamils called on the UN to create an "International Commission of Investigation into the allegations of War crimes, Crimes against Humanity and the Crime of genocide against the Tamil people in Sri Lanka" and urged the member states of the UNHRC to strengthen the current proposed draft "so that it will have meaningful action on the ground; bringing the individuals who were responsible for the violation of International Humanitarian Law, including extra-judicial killings, sexual violence an