- Candlelight vigil at Independence Square calls for end to police brutality
“The protest was peaceful, so why are you killing us?” read a poster board held by a mother, cradling her baby in her other arm, while silently calling for justice for the innocent that were killed by the unlawful use of force exercised by our law enforcement officials.
Independence Square saw a peaceful protest in the form of a candlelight vigil on Monday (25), to voice out against police brutality in Sri Lanka. Since the day the people’s revolution was sparked in Mirihana, there were several claims and even videos circulating on social media of policemen entering houses and torturing citizens, throwing stones at protestors, setting up spikes on a deceptively covered barricade, and, perhaps most notably, using live bullets to ward off protestors, which resulted in the murder of a citizen in Rambukkana who, according to his daughter, had simply gone out to acquire fuel. These are just a few cases that emerged in the recent past, but over the years, police brutality has been severe – especially towards minorities in Sri Lanka. The verbal and physical abuse by the very same men who have sworn their lives to protect us must end now – this was the call sounded by those participating in Monday’s event.
On the rainy evening of the vigil, citizens were seen writing slogans on boards – all speaking of the injustice caused by our law enforcement and calling to stop the killing of the innocent – and passing out candles to what seemed like a crowd of about 50 individuals. While this was going on, a training instructor, conducting his classes at Independence Square, approached the protestors to warn them of a handful of people staging a pro-Government protest at the pavilion nearby. Looks of disbelief, anger, and confusion passed around the protestors, now discussing how to approach this situation without escalating or creating unnecessary tension. It was then unanimously decided that they would carry on with their silent vigil against police brutality, and up walked the group towards the pavilion.
While they were taking places and lighting candles, they were swarmed by the few pro-Gota supporters, who claimed to have obtained a permit to camp out on the Independence Square pavilion, and have been there for three days now.
“You can’t protest here. We have permission, so you all can leave and take this somewhere else,” said one lady, who called herself the organiser of the pro-Government protest, adding that they too have children, and want what’s best for our slowly collapsing country.
When the participants of the vigil asked them to produce their permit or the letter they claimed to have, several attempts were made to talk through and insist that the participants leave. A permit was not produced, and so everyone attending the candlelight vigil moved towards the right side of the pavilion, which faces the main road. Once the pro-Government protestors saw that instead of leaving the premises, which they claimed to have rented, the group had moved towards an area with more visibility, verbal threats arose against the protestors, which resulted in Police intervention.
Attorney-at-Law Antoinette George, who attended the vigil, noted the irony of the situation.
“We were there to protest against police brutality, and in the end, we carried on our protest peacefully and silently with the Police preventing any more uncalled for disturbances,” she noted.
We also asked her to shed some light on the legalities of protesting at Independence Square, in case anyone else wanting to organise one was met with a similar obstruction.
“Sri Lankan citizens are able to exercise their fundamental rights enshrined in the Constitution of Sri Lanka under Article 14, such as freedom of speech and freedom of peaceful assembly, especially in a public place such as Independence Square, and so it cannot be reserved for any one group and be restricted to another. It was absolutely ridiculous that these Pro-Rajapaksa protestors attempted to oust us from this area,” she shared, in regard to the situation.
Speaking about the protest itself, she stated that she attended the candlelight vigil to commemorate those killed by police brutality.
“The focus was not only on the recent incidents of police brutality, but also of how state terrorism had directed the Police and the armed forces to act beyond their powers against the citizens of this country for decades, especially in the North and East.”
Activist Marisa de Silva, another citizen at the protest, highlighted that one aspect that contrasts starkly, and has been a case – particularly in the South – that we can’t seem to shake off, especially during the ongoing protests, is an appeal to the forces to stand with the people, and protect the citizens of this country.
“There is an inherent problem in this kind of appeal, not because I’m saying every individual in the forces is inhumane, but because you cannot look at them in isolation,” she stressed, adding that we cannot look at individual police officers without taking into consideration the Police’s behaviour throughout history and separate them from their actions against minorities.
“We must understand that the forces are arms of the State; they will protect the State, whether or not they personally believe in what we are saying,” she shared, adding that many are under the impression that the people in the forces can refuse to follow orders under personal capacity, but questioned how we can ask that of them.
“The forces are their bread and butter. If they were to refuse to follow orders, they’d lose their jobs. It makes no sense to appeal to the forces to ‘come onto our side’,” she elaborated.
She observed that during the recent protest, people – especially those from the South – could be seen head on with police officers, saying “you are one of us, come to our side”, and questioned if people in the North, who have been continuously harassed, abused, and tortured by our forces, would ever be considered “one of us”. She thus highlighted that this is an incredibly privileged and nationalistic mindset, and urged the public to look, if not at the Tamils and minorities, at the Sinhalese that are tortured in police stations – sometimes even without valid reasons.
“Torture is systematic in the Police force in Sri Lanka; it is part and parcel of their life. The majority of the victims could potentially have been Sinhalese, so how are the Sinhalese so blind to the Police being arms of the State?”
She strongly emphasised that demonising members of the forces is not the way to go, and that claiming them to be heartless and inhumane is pointless, as it is the system that needs to change. “It is the State, which gives them orders, that needs to change,” she noted.
She brought to light how long minorities have been suffering, adding that she speaks so much about the Sinhalese as they are the majority of this country, and without their support, no change will ever happen in what she called “our racist State”.
“For me, Gota going home is secondary. For me, this historic, monumental moment in time is about whether we, as a people, can come together and look at the difficult and uncomfortable issues and try to reconcile this very deeply divided island,” she told us.
In conversation with journalist and human rights activist Amalini de Sayrah about the recent acts of police brutality and gross misuse of power, she explained that shooting at people that are simply asking for a solution to a crisis created by bad governance is absolutely unconscionable, and that it just adds to a long list of reasons that go to show how little members of the forces care about the people.
“Many have been asking for justice for the man killed during the Rambukkana protest, but if we look at history, whether it’s shooting or custodial killings, we see zero accountability,” she stated. Bringing up the many reports which indicate deaths caused by the Police, she observed that we have normalised it to the point where it is just routine in Sri Lanka.
“This should not be the case. People should not be shot at under the guise of ‘minimum force’,” she stated, adding that unfortunately, with the current system we have in place, accountability is almost impossible.
In the current system, she explained, such incidents are investigated by the Police itself, and thus the only result is that the officer in question gets transferred, and it ends there. She also spoke of several cases where many families have waited years and years for justice for their loved ones that were killed by the Police, to no avail.
“We are told that the Police is for our protection, we are told that they will maintain the law, but we only see them protecting the State and power,” she expressed, using the recent protest at “GotaGoGama” as an example to show that while people don’t have the money to survive, the public’s money is being used to buy new gas masks for the Police so they can protect themselves.
These sentiments were shared by all those that were at Independence Square on the day, despite the rains and other disturbances; their stories told on cardboard placards. Will a change of governance mean an end to police brutality? Is systematic change something that we can hope for in the times to come? Will justice be served to those that were wronged by the people employed to protect us? Only time will tell.
