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Aussie rights group voice concern over death threats to lawyers
View(s):An Australian human rights group has expressed serious concern over death threats to lawyers and human rights activists who opposed the impeachment of Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake and called on the Government to ensure their safety.
“People for Human Rights and Equality calls upon the Sri Lankan Government to act immediately to ensure the safety of the lawyers concerned and to carry out investigations into the threats issued. We also call upon all friends of Sri Lanka to exert their utmost influence on the Sri Lankan Government to persuade it to carry out its responsibilities towards its citizens,” the group whose head office in Victoria said in a statement.
It said several prominent lawyers, who questioned the legality of the impeachment process and protested against it, had been issued with death threats by an organisation calling itself the Patriotic Force that Liberated the Country.
Pointing out that this was not the first time that people who opposed the assault on democratic institutions in Sri Lanka had been threatened, the group noted that no one had yet been brought to account regarding these offences and questioned the Government’s commitment to freedom of expression in Sri Lanka.
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