Human Rights Watch blamed Australia and India for the final watering down of the UNHRC resolution, thus easing the pressure on the Sri Lankan government, by putting domestic political concerns ahead of human rights, The Weekend Australian reported.

A heated exchange took place between visiting Canadian Senator Hugh Segal and External Affairs Minister Prof. G.L Peiris over Sri Lanka’s impeachment of the Chief Justice, the Daily Mirror reported.

Segal was being hosted by Peiris in delivering a guest at the Lakshman Kadirgamar Institute, when in response to a journalist question, he criticised the impeachment.

Photograph Tamilwin

Speaking at a press conference in Jaffna on Friday, the leader of the Tamil National People's Front (TNPF), Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam expressed "grave disappointment" on the UNHRC resolution 22/1, and asserted that the call for a "local investigatory process has to be outright rejected". 

Commenting on the resolution, he went on to say that the TNPF wished to "unreservedly distance" itself from it, citing three reasons: the call to use local mechanisms in order to carry out investigations, the resolution's emphasis on the LLRC, and the inclusion of the government's pledge to hold Northern provincial council elections.

See here for audio clip on TamilNet. Transcribed verbatim below:

Rejecting the UNHRC Resolution 22/1, Mahinda Rajapaksa said,

Defending bilateral ties between India and Sri Lanka, the High Commissioner of Sri Lank to India, Prasad Kariyawasam, said told The Week that the resolution was brought about by "LTTE lobbies from the west".

He added:

A spokesperson for the Commonwealth Secretary General Kamalesh Sharma has said that Sri Lanka will not be on the agenda at the forthcoming Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group.

Several countries have tried to include Sri Lanka on the agenda, especially due to November’s controversial Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, hosted by Colombo.

After demands by Tamil Nadu students that the IPL bars cricket players from Sri Lanka, reports have emerged that teams of the Indian Premier League have told the Indian cricket board to drop Chennai as a venue for matches.

Commenting on the UNHRC's resolution on Sri Lanka, the US Tamil Political Action Council (USTPAC) said that “strong international action on Sri Lanka is well overdue”.

USTPAC spokesperson, Dhamy Rajendra said:

A piece in The Economist examines the military’s role in Sri Lanka.

See extracts below, for full article click here.

JOSEPH STALIN is unhappy. The boss of a Sri Lankan teachers’ union claims that the country’s schools are losing their independence. Last month, unions say, nearly 4,000 headteachers were invited to interviews at the National Cadet Corps. Successful applicants will get 45 days of training, and then full military titles. The idea, supposedly, is to improve discipline in schools.

The army’s grip is spreading across Sri Lankan society. Activists talk of a general effort to promote military culture among the young, especially among the ethnic Sinhalese majority.

A Sri Lankan organisation has said they will attack Indian Tamils who visit Sri Lanka as revenge for attacks on Singhalese in Tamil Nadu.

Tamil groups across the world held protests, hunger strikes and awareness events in solidarity with the demonstrating students in Tamil Nadu earlier this week.

Hundreds of primary school students in Idinthakarai and Kanchipurum marched through the streets of Tamil Nadu wearing masks of 12-year-old Balachandran Prabhakaran, who was executed by Sri Lankan Army soldiers.

The UNHRC resolution passed Thursday highlights past and ongoing human rights violations in Sri Lanka, but regrettably fails to establish an independent and international investigation into alleged crimes under international law, Amnesty International said.

The International Commission of Jurists have welcomed a recently passed UN HRC resolution on Sri Lanka, and called upon the Commonwealth to change venue for the upcoming CHOGM away from Sri Lanka.

Responding to the passing of the resolution, Alex Conte, of the International Commission of Jurists, said,

Commenting on resolution 22/L1 British Tamils Forum (BTF) said the "United Nations have failed a people on its own mandate of human rights," adding, "a clear political divide is apparent on the resolution passed today after being watered down to gain support of some voting member States."

See here for full statement.