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	Sri Lankan Government accused of shelling civilians by Reuters / AFP & agencies   20 May 2009   Calls grow for war crimes probe into Sri Lanka conflict. (AFP)   The prospect of war crimes charges following Sri Lanka"s military victory over Tamil Tiger rebels looms larger, with UN chief Ban Ki-moon backing growing calls for a full investigation.   Both sides in the conflict have been accused of rights violations, with numerous aid agencies and rights groups alleging indiscriminate army shelling and condemning the Tigers for using civilians as a human shield. The UN"s main rights body is to hold a special session on Sri Lanka next week.   "The Human Rights Council cannot be silent when innocent civilians are caught up in armed conflicts," said the council president . "The international community must strive to deliver justice to victims of human rights violations," he added.   A stream of eyewitness testimony to shelling by government troops that caused significant civilian casualties. Aid workers were also denied access to those trapped by the fighting, despite accounts of a jungle area littered with the dead or dying, with the elderly, women and children cowering in shallow dug-outs with little food or water for several months.   "There has to be accountability for what has gone on in Sri Lanka, there has to be clarity and there cannot be impunity," Rupert Colville, a spokesman for UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, said last week. Pillay said in March that both sides may be guilty of war crimes.   "Nothing we"ve seen since then has caused us to change our minds, quite the contrary," Colville said, adding that an independent inquiry of some form "is now essential."   According to the campaign group Human Rights Watch, satellite imagery and witness accounts contradict government claims that heavy weapons have not been used. It said both sides in the war were using civilians as "cannon fodder." Amnesty International has also demanded that "the mounting evidence of serious violations of international law" be investigated.   May 2009   EU to call for inquiry into Sri Lanka rights abuses. (Reuters)   The European Union will call on Monday for an independent inquiry into alleged violations of humanitarian and humans rights law in Sri Lanka and for those responsible to be brought to justice.   "The EU calls for the alleged violations of these laws to be investigated through an independent inquiry," said a draft EU text approved by the bloc"s 27 ambassadors and due to be put to foreign ministers meeting in Brussels. "Those accountable must be brought to justice," it added.   The draft also urges Colombo to cooperate fully with the United Nations to resolve the humanitarian crisis. It calls for an end to restrictions on aid agencies, full access to people displaced by the fighting, and for the International Committee of the Red Cross to be allowed to monitor screening of people leaving the conflict zone.   The statement reiterates a call for a special session of the United Nations Human Rights Council on the situation in Sri Lanka and for media freedoms to be ensured.   11 May 2009   UN chief ‘appalled’ by weekend death toll in Sri Lankan conflict.   UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today said he was appalled at the killing of hundreds of Sri Lankan civilians caught in the middle of hostilities between the army and separatist Tamil rebels over the weekend.   The conflict in the north of the South Asian nation between Government forces and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) has claimed thousands of lives in the past several months, Mr. Ban said.   More than 100 children were among a large number of Tamil civilians killed on the weekend, the United Nations Colombo spokesman Gordon Weiss has said.   "The large scale killing of civilians, including the death of over 100 children, over the weekend shows that the bloodbath scenario has become a reality," Weiss told AFP.   It is the latest assault on civilians trapped in the war zone, where hundreds of people were reported killed on Sunday in an artillery barrage that struck the less than 5 square km (2 square miles) the separatist rebels control.   The United Nations has for months urged restraint, and the U.N. human rights commissioner has warned both could possibly be blamed for war crimes.   The Sri Lankan government has refused all international calls for a ceasefire despite reports from the United Nations last month saying 6,500 civilians may have been killed and 14,000 wounded in fighting since January.   It has also turned down requests by the UN to send humanitarian officials into the rebel territory, where the UN estimates at least 50,000 civilians are trapped.   UNICEF reiterated its calls from last week for children and civilians to be protected from the fighting and allowed to move freely to safe areas. “Every injured child must immediately be taken from the conflict zone so that they too can receive appropriate medical support,” said Mr Toole.   In addition to being exposed to the conflict, UNICEF said that children are living in conditions with inadequate health care, safe water, sanitation and shelter.   “The best possible thing for these children and their families is to be able to move to safe areas that are free of fighting, so that they can receive support and assistance,” said Toole.   The International Committee of the Red Cross says the civilians in the combat zone had no safe area to take shelter and were unable to flee. "The terrified population is in need of protection, medical care and basic assistance," it said.   Jacques de Maio, ICRC"s head of operations for South Asia, said medical services in the affected region had been overwhelmed by casualties and hundreds needed emergency treatment and evacuation.   "People are being caught in the crossfire, hospitals and ambulances have been hit by shelling and several aid workers have been injured while evacuating the wounded," he said. "The violence is preventing the International Committee of the Red Cross from operating in the region.
	UN urges fight against Hate Speech in CyberSpace by Agence France Presse (AFP)   June 2009   The United Nations has appealed to parents, the Internet industry and policy-makers to join hands to eradicate hate speech from cyberspace. Addressing a day-long seminar titled "Unlearning Intolerance" on the danger of "cyberhate," UN chief Ban Ki-moon lauded the benefits of the Internet but regretted that "there are those who use information technology to reinforce stereotypes, to spread misinformation and propagate hate." "Some of the newest technologies are being used to peddle some of the oldest fears," he warned, decrying what he called "digital demonization... targeting innocents because of their faith, their race, their ethnicity, their sexual orientation."   The secretary general said the Internet industry "can help ensure that hate speech does not proliferate online" and urged policy-makers to "take a hard look at this problem and work to safeguard people while balancing basic freedoms and human rights." He also stressed that parents have a responsibility to teach their children to safely surf the Internet. The world body began its "Unlearning Intolerance" series in 2004 with a forum on anti-Semitism and Islamophobia and has continued the program with lectures and seminars since then.
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