Guards harass couples for
holding hands
07 March 2016 AFP
Colombo - Sri Lanka's government has sacked a senior
security official after guards chased away couples from a monument
in Colombo for holding hands, a minister in the conservative
Buddhist country said on Monday.
The move came after a couple posted video of the
guards on social media and is a marked change from the former
government, under which police would routinely round up young
lovers for kissing in public.
Deputy foreign minister Harsha de Silva said he
intervened after visiting the Independence Square monument on
Sunday and finding security guards were driving away unmarried
couples.
He said he spoke with Prime Minister Ranil
Wickremesinghe who ordered the sacking of the director in charge of
security.
“What happened was their boss got fired,” de Silva
said.
“The guards will be sent somewhere else and
hopefully warned not to repeat their arrogant
behaviour.”
The couple who filmed the guards said they were told
that only married couples with children were allowed to sit at the
monument, built to mark independence from Britain in
1948.
Sri Lanka's largely conservative Buddhist society
looks down on public displays of affection even among married
couples.
Police are also known to occasionally arrest
so-called “umbrella lovers” who shelter under parasols in scorching
sun along the Galle Face promenade in the capital.
But the latest move suggests official attitudes have
softened since the regime of former president Mahinda Rajapakse,
who was defeated in January 2015.