Hong Kong: August 5, 2008
We are pleased that Prof. Wijesinhe, the Secretary-General of the Secretariat for Co-ordinating the Peace Process, has apologised for his statement dated 5th August, Further Generalizations from the Asian Human Rights Commission, attributing to the AHRC a report that we did not publish and, in which he made several accusations against the AHRC. We reproduce below the full text of the email received from Prof Wijesinhe.
Subject: Fwd: Apology
fao Basil Fernando
Dear Basil
Thanks for your letter of August 5th regarding the recent statement I issued entitled ‘Further generalizations from the Asian Human Rights Commission’. I was in fact responding to a report from the Asian Centre for Human Rights, and must apologize unreservedly for the error.
I will pass over the other personal points you make in your letter, since I can understand that you must have been hurt by this unwarranted response. In mitigation, though this is not an excuse, I should note that I was responding to a report read on my blackberry, over the weekend when I was not in office, and the initials ACHR seemed all too familiar. I will of course make the necessary corrections on the website with the apology that is due.
Yours sincerely,
Rajiva Wijesinha
For further details of this issue please refer to our Press Release: SRI LANKA: A further false report from the ‘Peace Secretariat’, at: http://www.ahrchk.net/pr/mainfile.php/2008mr/543/
