CANBERRA (AP) - Australia's prime minister was under mounting pressure on Monday to join his Indian and Canadian counterparts in boycotting a British Commonwealth summit in Sri Lanka this week over concerns about the island nation's human rights record.
India announced on Sunday that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will be the second leader after Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper to boycott the Nov 15-17 meeting. There are 54 members of the Commonwealth, a loose association of former British colonies.
Australian Senator Lee Rhiannon called on Prime Minister Tony Abbott to boycott the meeting after she and New Zealand lawmaker Jan Logie were prevented from holding a press conference on human rights issues in Colombo on Sunday by immigration officials who seized their passports and took them to their hotels for three hours of questioning.
Rhiannon, whose Greens party is not part of Australia's conservative coalition government, described the treatment as "unlawful", given she had an appropriate tourist visa and a letter from Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade to the Sri Lankan government explaining her trip.
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