During the night of Thursday to Friday, hundreds of soldiers and police brutally dislodged the demonstrators who still occupied the presidential secretariat. However, they had just announced that they would evacuate the premises peacefully.
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Messages from worried demonstrators began to flock shortly after midnight, Friday, July 22. On social networks and WhatsApp groups, they were alarmed by the arrival by bus and trucks of hundreds of soldiers and police officers, heavily armed, near the presidential secretariat. In the middle of the night, the police, for many tapped in the shadows, surrounded the iconic promenade of the seafront, barring all access.
The new president, Ranil Wickremesinga, freshly elected by the Parliament on Wednesday, July 20, had promised firmness to the demonstrators who had pushed his predecessor to resign, Gotabaya Rajapaka last week. “If you try to overthrow the government, occupy the president’s office and that of the Prime Minister, it is not democracy, it is out of the law,” he warned. The state of emergency which gives the armed forces and the police of extended powers had been established from the start of this week, which promised to be tumultuous.
Less than twenty-four hours after his swearing in, Thursday, July 21, Ranil Wickremesinga will therefore have implemented. Around 1 a.m. on Friday, events rushed on Friday. The security forces, in ancient attire, brutally dislodged the demonstrators who were around and inside the presidential secretariat, occupied since July 9. “We slept in the secretariat, transformed into a library, and the police began to strike us, explains Prathibha Fernando, a demonstrator in his forties, still in shock from the assault. We celebrated Our last night here, and we were all walking up in the afternoon. “
brands of violence
The demonstrators had announced, a few hours earlier, that they would peacefully leave the premises on Friday. Aragalaya, the citizen movement which pushed Gotabaya Rajapaksa to the flight and then to resignation, had already voluntarily evacuated several symbols of power. These protesters, who consider the new president, Ranil Wickremesinga, as an ally of the Rajapaka clan, claim to want to continue their struggle. But they were ready to make the secretariat presidential, which they had invaded on July 9.
Ranil Wickremesinga will not have given them time, preferring to send the army and the police dislodge them. “We kneel, begging them not to hit us, but they did it anyway,” said Shiryerha Wickramathilake, a 42 -year -old photographer, who was also in the presidential secretariat. Several demonstrators, wounded by the baton shots brought by the police, bore the marks of these violence. “We knew what we were exposing ourselves when we started this movement, but the deployed arsenal is that which is generally reserved for terrorists”, judge Devinda Kodagoda, a protester, injured in the face and by hand.
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