Do Human Rights Exist?

Do human rights exist in Sri Lanka? The UNDP organized a human rights day program at the Colombo University and Ms Sunila Abesekara, Executive Director of INFORM and Human Rights Defender, was invited as the keynote speaker. But the vice-chancellor of Colombo University decided not to permit Sunila to speak at the Colombo University. Thus the UNDP had to cancel their program at the University and relocate it. The situation is so bad in Sri Lanka even the UN cannot talk about human rights. In the present context the Supreme Court judge advice the president of the student union not to get involved in student activity, which means a violation of fundamental right of engaging in student activity during university period. The Supreme Court of Sri Lanka is a part of the human rights violation mechanism. Are all the communities in Sri Lanka enjoying their human rights equally? If we have the environment and protection to talk about Human Right violations then Human Rights exists. When the violation of human rights happen a picket, rally or a petition or case was filed at the court. But in the present context none of these methods are effective. Thus the human rights defenders have to take a different role now. They should not act as buffer zones. They should allow the people to directly face the situation of violation of their human rights and then to guide the people to protect their rights once it has been violated by the state. The meeting was followed by a Protest at Lipton Circus at 12.30 pm. Human Right activists, representatives from social and political organizations, civil society, religious leaders, politicians and general public participated.