TCHR officially participating in the 61st session of the NGO conference at UNESCO

61st session of the NGO conference at the headquarters of UNESCO, Paris

TCHR officially participating in the 61st session of the NGO conference at UNESCO

Courtesy: TCNR

Today, the 61st session of the NGO conference is taking place in Paris at the headquarters of UNESCO. France-based Tamil Centre for Human Rights – TCHR is participating in this conference, in its official capacity along with another 425 NGOs from 80 countries with 2250 participants.

This is the first time that the NGO conference has taken place out side the USA.

The main speakers at this conference are – UN VIPs, Ministers, Academics, Intellectuals, Religious leaders, Human rights defenders and many others. The theme of the conference is "Reaffirming Human Rights for all – the Universal Declaration at 60".

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948, articulates a wide range of civil and political rights, and economic, social and cultural rights. Representatives of TCHR are distributing several publications in French and English, highlighting the human rights violations and war crimes committed by the Sri Lankan armed forces against the innocent Tamil people in the North East of Sri Lanka. These gross violations are systematic and unfortunately impunity still reigns.

As usual the Sri Lankan government and their representatives at UNESCO are panicked by the official TCHR participation in this conference and the usual intimidation and harrassment are in process. These have been witnessed by the NGO community as desperate acts by a failed state, which is committing genocide and doing its utmost to avoid international scrutiny.

According to conference sources, the NGOs, apart from the government propagandists are in solidarity with TCHR and its ongoing tasks.