Your Excellency,

We write to urge your delegation to work with other member and observer states of the United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC) to bring the issue of accountability for wartime abuses in Sri Lanka onto the agenda of the Council during its March 2012 session. Almost three years after the end of the military conflict between the Sri Lankan government and the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the government has not kept its commitments to the people of Sri Lanka, the UN Secretary-General, and the Human Rights Council to undertake credible measures to provide justice and accountability for the widespread and serious wartime abuses.

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Reporters Without Borders has written an open letter to President Mahinda Rajapaksa urging him to take whatever measures are necessary to protect Frederica Jansz, the editor of The Sunday Leader, and to ensure that those responsible for last week’s death threats against her are arrested.

The threatening letter Jansz received on 27 October was prompted by her 2009 interview with Gen. Sarath Fonseka, a former army commander and presidential candidate in 2010, in which Fonseka accused defence minister Gotabhaya Rajapaksa of ordering soldiers to kill Tamil Tiger rebels who wanted to surrender. This is not the first time Jansz has been threatened.

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