UN rights body OKs call for postwar Sri Lanka accountability
The top U.N. human rights body on Thursday approved by consensus a resolution aimed to increase accountability and reconciliation in Sri Lanka in the aftermath of its decades-long civil war that left tens of thousands of people dead.
International advocacy groups hailed the measure by the Human Rights Council in Geneva for calling for international judges and lawyers to help ensure the judicial process in Sri Lanka, where authorities have long avoided investigating alleged war crimes by its forces and victims' families have been futile in their attempts to seek justice.
Thursday's resolution calls on Sri Lanka to allow for punishment of "those most responsible for the full range of crimes" and encourages the government -- which has been revamped due to elections this year -- "to investigate all alleged attacks by individuals and groups on journalists, human rights defenders, members of religious minority groups and other members of civil society."
