Let Us Focus On Real Issues Instead Of ‘Bra-Issues’
By Muheed Jeeran –January 8, 2016
Muheed Jeeran
It was shocking to hear a public statement made by President Maithripala Sirisena last week in light of an incident which occurred at the Enrique Iglesias concert in Colombo. In his speech President Sirisena suggested that the organizers of the Enrique Iglesias concert in Colombo should be whipped with the tails of toxic stingrays. This is a punishment reserved for hardened criminals (in medieval Sri Lanka) which was a well-known expression of severe castigation.
Never in this civilized world would we expect a statesman to spend his time making serious and at the same time ridiculous statements onsuch silly matters!
Early last year, we backed Sirisena’s campaign during the presidential election as he clearly promised to promote democracy and personal freedom. However, this controversial ideology puts a question mark on his genuine intention of protecting the liberty.
Our local women running on stage to kiss the singer, and throwing their bras, was a matter that in the beginning received little attention except in the social media. It was not widely known in the mainstream media, not at all. But, after the public statement from our President, it is now widely circulated throughout the international media. What was a one-time, low-visibility local incident, has unfortunately been turned into an international incident. This is not good news for the international community, though I assume the President was trying to impress his local media following. Still, I strongly believe this statement should not have been made by the President in the first place.
I was lobbying against the Saudi Government to stop their sentence to stone to death our domestic maid in Saudi Arabia for the crime of adultery. Our government diplomacy was to get the Saudis to reconsider their decision on sympathetic grounds, which was the core reasoning of the appeal. However, we strongly lobbied that the medieval punishment of stoning is not an option in our civilized world. When the punishment for stoning was announced against our domestic maideven our High Commissioner to Saudi Arabia was in agreement with it. This has disappointed many rights activists and our local media. Our domestic maid who was almost in the verge of losing her life is very fortunate because our President’s recent controversial statement has come after the Saudi authorities themselves suspended the barbaric sentence against her.Read More
