Statement on the brutal police attack on HND (Higher National Diploma) students on 29/10/2015

Picture courtesy Hirunews.lk

• by Groundviews 
• - on 10/31/2015 

Many of us issuing this statement today played an active role in the January 08, 2015 Presidential Election campaign and the subsequent General Election on 17 August. Ours was not a political involvement in the sense of playing party politics but a principled political intervention to change the culture of governance in this country. We had witnessed close to a decade of increasing authoritarianism, the shrinking of democratic space and a culture of violent suppression of dissent under the defeated Rajapaksa regime. We intervened because we wanted to see tangible change. We were, however, not so naïve as to expect a complete change in the political culture of the country and were therefore not so surprised at the appointment of a jumbo cabinet, or the nepotism that is creeping back into the functioning of the government, but we did have some minimum expectations from a new regime that campaigned almost exclusively on the theme of ‘good governance’ and a President and Prime Minister who repeatedly preach the mantra of democracy and good governance.

Statement on the Brutal Police Attack on HND (Higher National Diploma) Students on 29 10 2015 by Thavam Ratna