The denunciation of an investigation promoted by civil society as a result of the serious respiratory problems registered after they were used, last summer, in the demonstrations that precipitated the resignation of Raiapaksa. Activists: “These weapons should be used to disperse, not kill.”
Colombo (Asia News) – In the repression of demonstrations in Sri Lanka, the police have used tear gas that expired twenty years ago. And in the most critical stage of the protests – between the spring and early summer of 2022 – they fired more than 6,000 cartridges, three times more than the tear gas used in the last ten years.
The complaint is contained in the report “Tear gas. The tears of 20 million” that some realities of local civil society presented a few days ago at the Center for Society and Religion (CSR) in Colombo. The investigation, led by independent journalist Tharindu Jayawardena with the support of the Right to Information Commission, has revealed worrying data on the conditions of the tear gas used by the police during the Aragalaya, the wave of popular protests that led to the resignation of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa.
Between March 31 and July 20, 2022, the police used grenades and tear gas cartridges worth more than 26 million rupees (about 77,000 euros) on 84 different occasions. “Many times the police have used tear gas in violation and ignoring safety instructions on its use. He even used expired cartridges, trying to hide that he had done it when he was asked for information about it, ”says the document, which also records that the expiration dates had exceeded 10 or 20 years.
The journalist Jayawardena explained that the investigation began last September when some victims of the repression against the protests reported serious health problems due to the tear gas used to disperse the crowd. “As a journalist – he explained – in the last ten years I have covered many demonstrations that were dispersed with tear gas. But I have never seen such serious problems.” Some people even died from respiratory complications.
“We repeatedly requested information from the Police Department using the Right to Information Law – continues Jayawardena – but relevant and adequate information has not been provided to us. Only after four appeal hearings before the Right to Information Commission were the police ordered to give all the details. But to date it still hasn’t done so completely.”
“In 2012, 20,000 grenades and tear gas cartridges were purchased,” the report says. Between 2012 and 2015, the police used only 2,306. Although the remaining stocks expired in 2017, they were not destroyed. The same was the case with grenades and cartridges purchased in 2017 that expired in 2021. This is a clear violation of public health, because these gases are used to disperse crowds, not kill them with respiratory or other complications.
Meanwhile, police in Colombo used tear gas a few nights ago to disperse a protest organized by the university students’ union. The objective was to denounce the economic, social and political crisis in which the country finds itself.
