We The ‘Criminal’

By Lakmali Hemachandra -March 31, 2014

Lakmali Hemachandra

“History tells us that many of the fundamental rights we enjoy today were obtained after generations before us engaged in sustained protests in the streets: the prohibition against child labor, steps toward racial equality, women’s suffrage – to name just a few – were each accomplished with the help of public expression of these demands. If freedom of expression is the grievance system of democracies, the right to protest and peaceful assembly is democracy’s megaphone. It is the tool of the poor and the marginalized – those who do not have ready access to the levers of power and influence, those who need to take to the streets to make their voices heard.” -   “Take back the streets” Repression and Criminalization of protest around the world October 2013

The Constitution of Sri Lanka declares that ‘We’ the people are sovereign, that the people’s sovereign executive power will be exercised through the office of Executive Presidency, people’s legislative power will be exercised through the Parliament and the sovereign judiciary power of the people is to be exercised through courts and tribunals constituted by the Parliament. We the people are very important it would seem when one reads the Constitution of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka. However, that is not the story that we hear from the Courts appointed by we the people’s sovereign powers, the courts are singing a different tune these days and it says that we the people are in fact criminals, that We the people do not have the right to dissent and protest using the roads built by the We the people’s money, because We are a danger to public property and public order.

This is the official reason given by the Police in applying for injunction orders against mass protests by students, that they are obstructing public order, creating public nuisance and posing probable threats to public property. Some of the bail conditions issued by the Courts in fact ban student activists from organizing and taking part in protests. Magistrate courts, including the Mahara Magistrate Court that issued an injunction order against the IUSF student protest march on 19^th of March and later on arrested 14 student activists, have issued many an injunction orders to protect this ‘public’ from the ghastly nuisance of students and other dissenters. The public should be very safe in the hands of the police and the Magistrates, the way they issue order after order to protect the interests of the public.

However, what is happening in reality is that in the guise of public order and public nuisance, the very rights of the people, the supposedly sovereign people, are being violated by the institutions whose primary responsibility is to protect them. People are rapidly being converted into criminals.  It is important for everyone to understand what this trend of criminalization of dissent is undermining and what the eventual outcome of these arbitrary and anti-people decisions would be. We the people are being usurped of our democratic rights, right under our noses. If we do not take action against it now, at the end of the tunnel we will lose all our democratic rights to engage in politics, to dissent and protest government policy. It is the very essence of democracy that the courts are restricting in the interest of the state, against the interest of the people.Read More