Need for a social discourse on capital punishment; Maithri

President Maithripala Sirisena says a social discourse should be commenced on the demand to implementation of Capital Punishment against those who are selling and distributing drugs, President Secretariat said. The President was speaking at the national program held at BMICH today to mark the world tobacco day 2015. The theme of this program was ‘Stop Illicit Trade in Tobacco Products in Sri Lanka.’ “When I make such a suggestion, some groups will attempt to make an influence against me alleging that human rights will be violated by that. But, we have to ignore those oppositions when taking decisions for the betterment of the country,” the President emphasized. He mentioned that the countries that have been successful in preventing drugs did not hesitate to impose death penalty against drug trafficking. The President suggested this discourse against drugs should be created widely among the religious leaders, social activists, school community, media and other fields. The President said that media organizations should focus on programmes to find out the views of the people regarding the drug menace and through those programmes a concept should build in society towards eliminating the drug menace from the society. He further said that according to the reports of the Department of Census and Statistics the pivotal reason for the poverty in Sri Lanka is the drug menace. “There is no need to waste time on decision-making processes about making the country’s future a prosperous one by eliminating poverty.