Protesters heading to Jaffna violating court orders

A protest march from Pottuvil to Jaffna, with the participation of representatives of civil society organizations, regional politicians and religious leaders that commenced Wednesday in the Eastern province, ignoring a court order prohibiting protests is heading towards Jaffna.

The protesters are marching against alleged large scale land grabs, state sponsored settlement programmes, failure to implement the Rs 1,000 wage increase for plantation workers, failure to follow a UN call to allow burial of those who had died from COVID-19 and in support of the UN report on human rights.

The protest started from Pottuvil and headed towards Batticaloa despite heavy rains and the opposition of the police, who made several attempts to stop the protesters by showing the court order to them, but they ignored the police warnings. The protesters asked the police why protests in other parts of the country were permitted..

Among the protesters were MPs M. A. Sumanthiran, Govindan Karunakaran and Shanakiyan Rasamanickam and former MPs T. Ariyanethran and Gnanamuttu Srineshan.

Their protest march is scheduled to reach Jaffna by Saturday.