Global trade union body condemns violence used against protestors

IndustriALL Global Union, which represents 50 million workers in the mining, energy and manufacturing sectors in 140 countries including Sri Lanka has condemned police action and violence used against the protestors on July 9.

The Geneva-based organization’s General Secretary Valter Sanches in a letter to President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa and Public Security Minister Sarath Weerasekare requested to release all the protestors immediately, including trade unionists from quarantine.

“We are informed that trade unions including teachers unions and students were protesting against the privatization and militarization of education. Those protesting were dealt with brutally by the police despite the fact that the right to protest is protected by the Constitution of Sri Lanka. We are further informed that the protestors were granted bail by the magistrate. Upon their release, the police rounded them up and forcibly took them to a quarantine centre. They are kept in the quarantine centre against their will,” the global organization said in the letter.

“This is a serious violation of the Constitutional and democratic rights of the trade unionists and citizens of Sri Lanka. Police have no powers to detain people who are released on bail by a Court of Law. The police have no right to take away people in the name of quarantine when the health authorities have not made any such decision,” Sanches said.