Foreign diplomats have urged Sri Lanka’s beleaguered president to repeal a state of emergency imposed after a general strike brought the country to a halt.
SIA reports that, the government of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa declared a new state of emergency on Friday to “ensure public order” after weeks of protests demanding his government step down over mismanagement of the country’s economy.
Police fired tear gas and used water cannon earlier on Friday to disperse students attempting to storm the national parliament to demand that Rajapaksa resign amid a general strike that shut shops and halted public transport, bringing the nation of 22 million people to a standstill after weeks of unrest.
The European Union said on Saturday that declaring a state of emergency “could have a counter productive effect” and noted that a month of anti-government protests had so far been peaceful.
US ambassador to Sri Lanka Julie Chung said that declaring a second state of emergency in as many months “won’t help”, and the country’s deepening economic crisis and political gridlock needed long-term solutions.
“The voices of peaceful citizens need to be heard,” Chung said.
“And the very real challenges Sri Lankans are facing require long term solutions to set the country back on a path toward prosperity and opportunity for all,” she added.
Canadian envoy David McKinnon said Sri Lankans had a right to peaceful protest under a democracy and that it was “hard to understand why it is necessary, then, to declare a state of emergency”.
The government said on Saturday the emergency legislation was declared to create political stability and that placing the country in a state of emergency would help create necessary conditions for the government to negotiate with the International Monetary Fund and other agencies for financial assistance and debt restructuring.
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