Sri Lanka arrests more than 600 protesters for violating curfew in Western Province

Colombo: Sri Lanka on Sunday (April 3, 2022) arrested more than 600 protesters in the Western Province for violating the curfew imposed from Saturday 6 pm to Monday 6 am.

Police said 664 people have been arrested in the Western Province between 10 pm last night and 6 am today.

Before the planned protest for Sunday, the island nation had announced 36 hour curfew The country faced a severe power crisis and rising inflation.

The island nation of 22 million people is having a tough time dealing with a blackout for 13 hours a day as the government scrambles to secure foreign currency to pay for fuel imports.

An island-wide curfew was declared ahead of the ‘Arab Spring’-style protests, the Colombo Gazette reports.

The Arab Spring was a series of anti-government protests, uprisings and armed uprisings that spread across much of the Arab world in early 2010. The island nation is facing an unprecedented economic crisis. Sri Lanka’s economy has been on the decline since the Covid-19 pandemic, with the tourism sector crashing.

Sri Lankan government has also imposed nationwide social media blackout According to an internet observatory, after midnight on Sunday, April 3.

Some two dozen social media platforms were affected, including Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, YouTube, Snapchat, TikTok and Instagram.

Responding to the ban on social media, Sri Lanka’s Minister of Youth and Sports Namal Rajapaksa said that such restrictions are useless due to the availability of VPNs (Virtual Private Networks).

Namal Rajapaksa tweeted, “I will never condone social media blocking. The availability of a VPN, like the one I’m using now, makes such restrictions completely useless. I’m asking the authorities for more I urge you to think progressively and reconsider this decision.”

Sri Lanka is currently facing a shortage of foreign exchange which has led to shortage of food, fuel, electricity and gas and has sought the help of friendly countries for economic assistance.

There are power cuts in Sri Lanka for at least 13 hours a day. The Sri Lankan currency has also devalued by around SLR 90 against the US dollar since March 8.

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