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A Foreign Ministry statement issued yesterday said that Sri Lanka will support a Norwegian initiative to establish an international mechanism to protect campaigners for human rights. Sri Lanka described the Norwegian resolution, moved during the current United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR), as the most important initiative to emerge from the present sessions. "Human rights defenders and those who seek democratic alternatives to violent dissension are constantly at risk," Sri Lankan delegates said during the Geneva-based UNCHR sessions, according to the ministry statement. Sri Lanka shared the view that "the best way to expose those responsible for these acts of terror and violence, will be to have an impartial and neutral mechanism to ensure not only the rights, but the safety of human rights defenders and those who work for democratic dissent." The statement stressed that the Kumaratunga government had taken "effective action" to improve the country's human rights record, which had been severely tarnished, particularly by state-sponsored human rights abuses, during the 17-year tenure of the previous UNP regime. Sri Lanka's human rights record had deteriorated to the point where foreign aid grants, generously bestowed on the country during earlier decades, had been almost completely suspended. "It is significant that no government delegation has made any adverse comment on Sri Lanka at the current session," the statement said.
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