A/HRC/21/18 several occasions, with increasing intensity in 2012, regarding his work and international contacts, including with the United Nations. In March 2012, he was summoned to the Public Prosecutor‟s office in Riyadh for questioning. Mr. Al-Qahtani was reportedly issued a travel ban and informed that he was subject to a criminal investigation. At the time of the completion of the present report, the Government had not responded to the communication sent in relation to his case by several special procedures on 3 May 2012 (ibid.). 36. According to information received, Mr. Al-Qahtani was formally notified of 11 different charges laid against him when he was brought before the Riyadh Trial Court on 18 June 2012. Reportedly, the charges made specific reference to his work as a human rights defender and accused him of providing false facts and information to international mechanisms by way of statements and the dissemination of information about individual complaints against the Saudi Government which “contradict the truth and reality documented in official papers”. 37. The next hearing relating to Mr. Al-Qahtani is scheduled for 1 September 2012. Concerns have been raised that the criminal charges against him are directly related to his work documenting cases of arbitrary detention in Saudi Arabia and constitute reprisals in response to his engagement with human rights mechanisms, including the Human Rights Council and its special procedures. Concerns about Mr. Al-Qahtani‟s situation were raised in public by civil society organizations on 29 June 2012 under agenda item 5 during the twentieth session of the Human Rights Council. Sri Lanka 38. My previous reports have referred to the climate of fear human rights defenders face in Sri Lanka.8 The negotiation and adoption of resolution 19/2 on Sri Lanka at the nineteenth session of the Human Rights Council in March 2012 resulted in significant escalation of hostile and defamatory media reporting in Sri Lanka, which primarily focused on human rights defenders in Geneva. 39. Human rights defenders described an environment of intimidation and hostility at the nineteenth session of the Council. Human rights defenders Sunila Abeysekera (affiliated with INFORM Human Rights Documentation Centre, Global Campaign for Women‟s Human Rights) and Nimalka Fernando (President of the International Movement against All Forms of Discrimination and Racism) reported that they were approached in the Palais des Nations by a Sri Lankan embassy staff member who told them that “they should not be in Geneva” and that “they were letting their country down”. 40. At a Human Rights Council side event which took place on 19 March 2012, Sandya Ekneligoda, a human rights defender and the wife of missing Sri Lankan political cartoonist Prageeth Ekneligoda, was reportedly harassed by members of the Sri Lankan delegation who attempted to prevent the continuation of the event. A day after returning to Colombo, Ms. Ekneligoda appeared in the Homagama Magistrate‟s Court in relation to her disappeared husband‟s habeas corpus case and her request for the former Attorney General to be summoned for questioning regarding a statement made by him to the Committee against Torture on 9 November 2011, indicating that the Government had information on the whereabouts of Mr. Ekneligoda. Ms. Ekneligoda was reportedly questioned by the Deputy Solicitor General regarding her participation in the March 2012 session of the Council. In response to the defence counsel‟s objection to the relevance of this, the Deputy 8 10 A/HRC/18/19, para. 69; A/HRC/14/19, paras. 40-43.