Sri Lankan authorities have fiercely clamped down on peaceful protests and antagonized protestors during the island’s worst economic crisis and hardship details Amnesty International in a new digest published today. 

The briefing, Penalized for Protesting: Sri Lanka’s crackdown on protestors, outlines Sri Lankan security state forces' failure to protect protestors, their use of excessive force, their use of the military to police protests, carrying out reprisals against protesters and targeting those who exercise their rights democratically. 

“The Sri Lankan authorities have repeatedly and unrelentingly stifled the voice of the people,” said Yamini Mishra, Amnesty International’s South Asia Regional Director. 

“The new government in Sri Lanka has continued resorting to the unlawful use of force, intimidation and harassment to subdue protestors, sending a chilling message to the people of Sri Lanka that there is no room for dissent. The right to freedom of peaceful assembly is a keystone of any rights-respecting society. It must be respected and protected.”

Amnesty International makes several recommendations to the government of Sri Lanka including:

• Holding prompt, transparent and impartial investigations, with the support of international observers, into all incidents of attacks on peaceful protesters with the intention of holding those responsible for human rights violations to account;

• Stop deploying armed forces to police civilian gatherings; 

• Ensuring Emergency Regulations that provide overbroad, unchecked powers to law enforcement officials, and enable further abuses of human rights are never put in force or applied against protesters or anyone else;

• Repealing the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) and issuing an immediate moratorium on its use; Guarantee the protection of the human rights of all other PTA detainees including guarantees of due process and fair trials, and protection from arbitrary arrest, detention, torture or other ill-treatment; 

• Ending the demonization of protesters using divisive language;

Sri Lanka has an extensive track record of using a militarized approach to police protests, particularly in the Northern Province, says the briefing. Families of the disappeared in the Tamil-populated Northern Province have been continuously protesting for truth and justice for over 2,000 days and have been subject to intimidation, and surveillance, by the police and armed forces, to prevent them from peacefully protesting. 

To read the full briefing from Amnesty International click here.