24 civil society organizations & leaders of 9 of those
Cases- Location of case in SG report
- 2014-033-001
- Relevant SG report
- Year of the report
- 2014
- From Country
- Country Geolocation
Latitude: 7.87305399999999
Longitude: 80.7717969999999
- Country Geolocation (linked Cases)
- Sri Lanka
- From Region
- UN body that raised the case prior to the SG report
- UN Special Procedures: Thematic
- Dates of prior UN action
- 21 March 2014
- Type of record
- Unnamed individual/group/organization
- Was the victim a foreign national?
- No
- Was the victim a minor?
- No
- Type of rights defended
- Unclear in SG Report
- Was the victim a civil servant or member of the security forces or of the judiciary?
- No
- Reported trigger of reprisal
having issued a joint civil society memorandum to the Human Rights Council and the international community
- Engagement with UN body
- UN Human Rights Council: UN Human Rights Council - General
- Dates of engagement
- Unclear
- Type of attempted engagement
- Submission of information to UN
- Dates of mentioned reprisals
- 6 March 2014
- Reprisal information
State-controlled Sri Lanka Rupavahini (TV) Corporation accused 24 civil society organizations of having issued a joint civil society memorandum to the Human Rights Council and the international community, while broadcasting the full names and images of the leaders of nine of those organizations and the names of affiliated civil society organizations. In the same bulletin, the Corporation allegedly also accused the mentioned organizations of having submitted false information to the international community to discredit the country, claimed that their memorandum would damage the peace and reconciliation prevailing in the country among various ethnic groups and regions and stated that it was common among NGOs to exaggerate information about the situation in Sri Lanka in order to receive funding.
- Types of reprisals suffered
- Defamation / Defamation campaign
- Alleged/likely perpetrators
- State actors
- Was the reprisal based on new legislation?
- No
- Does the report make general comment about country’s environment for engagement with UN?
- No
- Is the country cited for a "pattern of reprisal" in the context of this case?
- No
- Is a pattern of reprisals mentioned otherwise in the context of this case?
- No
- Does the report cite "self-censorship" as an issue in the context of this case?
- No
- How many times has the case been followed up in subsequent SG reports?
- 1
- In which SG report was this case followed up on? 0
- 2015
- Follow up information provided in SG report 0
5.My previous report also discussedthe case of 24 Sri Lankan civil society organizations that had reportedly been accused by the State-controlled Sri Lanka Rupavahini (TV) Corporation, in its English news bulletin, of having issued a joint civil society memorandum to the HRC(A/HRC/27/38, para.33). On 24 September 2014, the Government of Sri Lanka, in response to thejoint communication transmitted by mandate holders, stated that the Sri Lanka Rupavahihi Corporation was exercising its freedom of speech and expression within the set legal framework in Sri Lanka, however “unpalatable the contents of the newscast would have been to the said human rights defenders”. If the human rights defenders felt wronged by such newscast they could invoke a civil action for damages under the laws of Sri Lanka for defamation(A/HRC/28/85, case LKA 4/2014)
- Followup Trends 0
- No substantive information provided by SG report
- Did the government respond? 0
- Yes