Emergency turns Jekyll into Hyde

The JVP-led NPP government has laid bare its Jekyll-and-Hyde nature by deciding to use Emergency regulations to suppress the media. President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, in his address to the nation on 30 November, stressed that the state of Emergency, declared in view of recent weather disasters, would not be misused for undemocratic purposes, but on 02 December Deputy Minister of Public Security Sunil Watagala directed the police to use the draconian Emergency regulations against social media.

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Watagala told the police top brass, at a meeting in Malabe, that they must invoke Emergency regulations to deal with the social media activists who were carrying out personal attacks on President Dissanayake and ministers. He warned the media that all those arrested under Emergency regulations would be treated as offenders and not as suspects. So much for the new political culture the JVP/NPP promised!

The police, who are accused of acting as the JVP's Gestapo, are likely to follow the government's order at issue to the letter and go all out to suppress the media critical of the JVP/NPP bigwigs. Now that the JVP's legal advisor and Central Committee member Watagala has defied an assurance given by President Dissanayake and directed the police to use Emergency regulations against the media, one wonders whether there is an alternative centre of power within the NPP government.