London: Britain has asked Sri Lanka to investigate alleged atrocities in the conflict against Tamil Tigers after a television channnel here showed a documentary containing graphic images described as 'horrific'.
Channel 4 showed last night new footage of purported extra-judicial killings of Tamil rebels by the Sri Lankan military in the north-east in 2009.
However, Sri Lanka's defence ministry reportedly dismissed the videos as fabricated and said they were intended to discredit the army.
The one-hour documentary, titled 'Sri Lanka's Killing Fields', shows what appears to be executions of Tamil men and video showing the corpses of naked women who appeared to have been sexually assaulted.
Foreign Office minister Alistair Burt said he was "shocked by the horrific scenes" in the documentary, which he said contained "convincing evidence of violations of international humanitarian and human rights law".
He said the UK was ready to join the rest of the international community in pursuing "all options available" to pressure the Sri Lankan government to act.
Meanwhile, the Sri Lankan High Commission in London issued a statement today denying the allegations levelled by Channel 4 and added that if the charges are found to be genuine remedial measures will be taken.
The High Commission also noted that the images, which it were aired without any guarantee of the authenticity might have distressed the viewers, particularly to those belonging to different communities in Sri Lanka.
"This is an exercise which is carried out by a small section of international media at the behest of certain parties with vested interests," it said in the statement.
Comments
0 comment