Tag Archives: Governmental

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UN urges Sri Lanka not to miss opportunity to advance justice and reconciliation

3 March 2017 – The slow pace of transitional justice in Sri Lanka and the lack of a comprehensive strategy to address accountability for past crimes risk derailing the momentum towards lasting peace, reconciliation and stability, a United Nations report said today.

&#8220Seventeen months ago, when we published a detailed report on the grave human rights violations committed during the conflict in Sri Lanka, I urged the Government and all the people of Sri Lanka to ensure that this historic opportunity for truly fundamental change should not be squandered,&#8221 UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein said in a news release on the report.

He noted that in many ways, Sri Lanka appears to be turning a corner on the promotion and protection of human rights, but he stressed that hard-won gains could prove illusory if they are not tethered to a comprehensive, robust strategy.

&#8220This critical opportunity in Sri Lankan history cannot be missed,&#8221 he said, urging the Government and people of Sri Lanka once again to prioritize justice alongside reconciliation to ensure that the horrors of the past are firmly dealt with, never to recur.

The report, issued by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), assesses progress made in tackling the legacy of grave violations in Sri Lanka between 2002 and 2011 and acknowledges that there have been positive advances on human rights and constitutional reform.

However, the report notes that the structures set up and measures taken until now have been inadequate, lacked coordination and a sense of urgency.

&#8220Party politics, including the balancing of power between the different constituencies of the coalition in the run-up to constitutional reforms, have contributed to a reluctance to address difficult issues regarding accountability or to clearly articulate a unified position by all parts of Government,&#8221 the report states.

The report makes a number of concrete recommendations, including calling on the Government to embrace the report of the Consultation Task Force, to formulate a communications campaign to inform the public about details of the reconciliation agenda, to invite the UN human rights office to establish a presence in Sri Lanka, to give the highest priority to the restitution of all private land that has been occupied by the military, and to adopt legislation establishing a hybrid court.

The report also highlights a number of serious human rights violations that are reportedly continuing to occur in Sri Lanka, including the harassment or surveillance of human rights defenders and victims of violations, police abuse and excessive use of force, and the use of torture.

The High Commissioner will present the report to the Human Rights Council on 22 March in Geneva.

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Illegally parked rental bikes seized

Bicycles, mostly from the bike-sharing company Mobike, were parked at a parking lot on Wednesday. [Photo/China Daily] 

Authorities in Shanghai’s Huangpu district have seized more than 4,000 rental bikes, most of them improperly parked, highlighting the poor management of bicycles rented over the internet and the shortage of parking areas, especially in downtown areas.

There are also concerns that the problems faced by Shanghai may quickly spread to other cities as competition intensifies.

At a parking lot on Zhizaoju Road, thousands of rental bikes were laid out in rows with their wheels connected by iron chains. Some web users described the venue as a graveyard of bikes.

Zhou Lan, deputy director of the urban management department of Huangpu, said the seizure serves as a countermeasure to fight illegally parked bicycles, instead of merely revenge on bike-sharing companies.

Zhou said that the regional government authorized two independent institutions to help with the proper parking of nonmotor vehicles, and to tow away those outside designated areas on sidewalks.

A small number of properly parked rental bicycles were seized to make way for other nonmotor vehicles.

It’s estimated that in Huangpu, there are about 150,000 nonmotor vehicles – more than half of them electric bikes. But there are less than 1,500 nonmotor vehicle parking lots in the district, while the number of rental bikes has surged to more than 20,000.

Citywide, it’s estimated that more than 280,000 rental bikes have been put on the streets. Guo Jianrong, secretary-general of the Shanghai Bicycle Association, said that by June, the city is expected to have 500,000 rental bicycles.

“The association is busy drafting three new sets of standards: the management standard for shared bicycles, for shared electric bikes and for their service providers,” Guo said.

But for the time being, the struggle between bike-sharing startups and the regional government is continuing as business leaders in the sector said they won’t reduce the number of bicycles in big cities.

“We will continue to put more bikes in operation in Shanghai, depending on user demand,” said a spokeswoman for Mobike, the pioneer and now dominant player in the bike-sharing sector.

She said that Mobike has a management team of about 100 in Shanghai, plus 400 front-line operators.

In a news release on Thursday, the company said that it is collaborating with Baidu by taking advantage of its cloud computing service to fix the accuracy of the position of its parked bikes, which will help with management of the bikes.

A reward plan is also in the pipeline to encourage users to park bikes properly, the company said. Regarding the seized bikes, Mobike said that it will communicate with the urban management department and is willing to cover some of the department’s management costs.

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East Asia • •