![]() At the time, Wickremesinghe’s office stated that non-violent protests against the government would be permitted. The draft bill requires amendment in a number of key areas to mitigate the risk of abuseĭeputy-Chair, High Level Panel of Legal Experts on Media Freedomįollowing the disbanding of the camp, over 100 protestors were arrested, while others had their homes raided and were issued with travel bans. ‘We should not forget human rights in the face of our economic crisis’, she adds. ‘The military launched a huge attack on the protestors from that moment people have been scattered all over the place and finding their own way to continue the struggle’, says Perera, adding that water cannons, tear gas and violence were used in the dispersal of the protestors. After Rajapaksa resigned, he was replaced by then-Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, who declared a state of emergency, giving police further powers, and who ordered the removal of protestors from the GotaGoGama campsite. In July, protestors stormed the presidential residence and demanded President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s resignation. ‘It started because we didn’t have power, we didn’t have food, and we didn’t have gas so basically our whole lives got stopped completely’, says Shenali Perera, a young community leader and activist, who took part in the protests. The protest site became known as ‘GotaGoGama’. ![]() Protesting what they believed to be mismanagement by the government that led to the crisis, thousands of Sri Lankans gathered at the Galle Face Park in the capital, Colombo, from March to July 2022, with some making the site their home for months. While a $3bn bailout from the International Monetary Fund was agreed in March, half of the country’s families have already been forced to cut their children’s food intake, while thousands have fled Sri Lanka. In May 2022, as a result of low levels of foreign currency reserves, Sri Lanka defaulted on its international debt, leading to a shortage of food, fuel and power. ‘This is far from a good faith effort on the part of the Sri Lankan authorities to improve or replace a bad law it is an effort to shore up the government’s ability to target and silence their critics.’Ĭriticism has been rife in Sri Lanka since the country plunged into an economic crisis. ‘The proposed legislation is an insult to civil society in Sri Lanka, who have advocated for decades for legal reforms to protect human rights’, said Carolyn Nash, Asia Advocacy Director for Amnesty International USA, in a statement. Activists and human rights organisations have claimed that a new draft of Sri Lanka’s Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA) threatens citizens’ freedom of assembly and speech.
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