Photo from the Daily Mirror. The protesters reassembled after security and thugs blocked them.

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Today’s protest for the Chief Justice (for justice, really) was broken up by goons, who seemed to be backed by the cops, or at least ignored. This is the truth behind the legalese nonsense the government has been trying to pull – that lawyers, attorney generals and judges have been assaulted and threatened with violence, all because Basil Rajapaksa wants to violate the Constitution and get access to a bunch of provincial monies. They’re willing to tear the whole legal edifice down to get what they want, and that includes encouraging goons to threaten peaceful protestors with violence, like my mum.

Here’s my mother’s report from the protests today:

First, these goons are government goons. If they were not, the police would not have let them run amok with their sticks and threaten people. Yes, we were not any passerby. We were going to attend a protest. If it even crossed your mind that we should have stayed home, think again. “Labbata thiyapu atha puhulata thiyanva”. Next day it could be you.

Secondly, we are not all that powerless. It was interesting how the goons got exasperated with us at one point and said “Madam, why don’t you leave without creating trouble. I think, we got that response because we were engaging with them making eye contact with each one, and that made them uncomfortable. When one of them lifted the stick, my hand went automatically to my umbrella, but, he did not hit. One man even said, if you can’t go why don’t you bed with us. I looked straight in the eye and asked him and “what kind of talk is that” in my schoolmarm voice I suppose. I am not suggesting anybody tries to go one on one with goons, but, lot of us in white saris, for example, can have an effect, I feel.(Colombo Telegraph)

This government has rapidly devolved into a mafia, with the family at the top taking what they want and these violent goons on the streets. This is not a racial or territorial issue, they’re actually just violating natural justice now. On one hand there’s the nonsense they do in Parliament, on the other there’s thugs and physical violence on the streets.

Mahinda says this is what the people want, and that the Parliament is the will of the people, but that’s nonsense. He only has two-thirds there because Ranil Wickremesinghe is a dictator of the opposition and UNP MPs have crossed. Essentially the Parliament is broken, from both sides, and the Rajapaksa family is taking advantage to gobble as much money and power as they can.

So the result is that we get a family at the top, taking all the money and racing cars and airplanes and satellites they can, while we get murderers like that Tangalle tourist killer on the loose and random thugs accosting my mother in filth and threatening regular people with sticks. This is the modern injustice and it’s choking much more than our courts.

Posted on Thursday, January 10th, 2013 in Law, Politics, Sri Lanka.