COLOMBO, Feb 10: Sri Lanka’s government on Tuesday questioned the timing of UN criticism of the island nation’s human rights situation and defended selective use of British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC) programming on state radio stations.

On Monday, the BBC said it would no longer provide FM radio programming to Sri Lanka’s state broadcaster, and a panel of UN experts said journalists, rights defenders and lawyers in Sri Lanka lived in a “climate of fear”.

The dual criticisms came as the government has cornered Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) separatists in the Indian Ocean island nation’s north and battles to finish a civil war that has raged off and on since 1983.

And the criticisms came on a day when what the military said was a disguised LTTE suicide bomber exploded herself at a registration centre for refugees, killing 29 civilians and soldiers and wounding 90.—Reuters