[Letter] Anti-Discrimination Bill--Make It More Inclusive!

To: Park Tae-soo, secretary to the Senior Secretary to the President for Civic and Social
      Agenda Cha Seung-soo (tspark01@cwd.go.kr)
cc: Park Min-jae, secretary to the Secretary to the President for Political Affairs Sohn
      Eun-sang (comra@cwd.go.kr)
      Yu Seung-ki, secretary to the Chief of Staff Moon Jae-in (ysk237@president.go.kr)
      Lee Sook-Jin, secretary to the Chief of Staff Moon Jae-in (leesjdream@cwd.go.kr)


November 10, 2007

Dear Sir/Madam:

I'm writing to you on behalf of Companions on a Journey, a non-profit organisation working towards safeguarding the rights of sexual minority communities in Sri Lanka.

It is with much regret that we learnt about the Anti-Discrimination Bill, whose impending legislation was announced by the Ministry of Justice on October 2, will be presented to the National Assembly after the deletion from the original draft of 7 categories of personal attributes open to discrimination including "sexual orientation."

Our understanding is that this deletion of the 7 categories beats the purpose of introducing such a legislation in the first place, and it will set a bad legal precedent by allowing discrimination towards people who belong to the 7 deleted categories.

Since there is still time and opportunity available to you, we urge you to reconsider this bill and amend it to include the 7 deleted categories as was originally proposed. We hope that you will intervene to guarantee that the Anti-Discrimination Act is created not simply as a "more progressive" law but as the best possible law for all disadvantaged minorities.

Also, we further request you to listen to the civil society groups' voices so that the proposed bill would truly be an all-encompassing "Anti-Discrimination Act."

Thank you.

Sagara Palihawadane
Director
Companions on a Journey - Sri Lanka

Address: 21B, Subhadrarama Lane
Highlevel Road, Nugegoda
Sri Lanka
Phone: +94-(0)11-4851535
Fax: +94-(0)11-4857575
E-mail: coj@wow.lk