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Sri Lanka must repudiate threats to lawyer speaking out against attacks on minorities - HRW

The Sri Lankan government should immediately repudiate statements by the country’s justice minister threatening to disbar a prominent lawyer for speaking out against attacks on religious minorities, said Human Rights Watch.

In a statement released on Monday, Human Rights Watch director Brad Adams said,

“Government inaction in the face of the justice minister’s threat to revoke the license of a prominent rights lawyer for speaking out on behalf of an embattled community will have reverberations beyond Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka’s friends should be clear they are watching the government’s response clearly.”

On June 17 2017, Sri Lanka’s Justice Minister Wijeyadasa Rajapkshe threatened to “take necessary steps to remover Mr Lakshan Dias from the legal profession” unless the lawyer apologised for remarks on national television that condemned the government response to attacks on religious minorities.

See full statement here.

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