Pro-government supporters rally to have international investigation halted
Protestors have surrounded UN offices in Sri Lanka demanding that a panel investigating possible war crimes be suspended. Sri Lankans say the panel is unnecessary because their troops didn’t commit any war crimes in the war between the government and the Tamil Tigers that ended in May 2009. Some 7,000 civilians were killed in the last five months of the conflict. International criticism of Sri Lanka’s human rights record has propelled the EU to withdraw the country’s preferential trade access to its markets.