Archbishop Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith strongly condemns the arrest of Sri Lankan Catholic activist Shehan Malaka Gamage.
Selvaraj Soosamanikkam – Vatican
Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, Archbishop of Colombo Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, has strongly condemned the unjust arrest of Shehan Malaka Gamage, a prominent Catholic activist.
The Archbishop of Colombo, Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, has strongly condemned the arrest of a young Catholic activist in public in Sri Lanka on Monday, February 14, and expressed his deep concern that freedom of expression in the country is under great threat and that the ‘white vehicle culture’ is returning.
Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, the Archbishop of Colombo, has condemned the unjust arrests as “kidnapping” and lamented that the government was targeting those who raised their voices against the terrorist attacks on places of worship and high-end restaurants on Jesus’ Resurrection Sunday, 2019.
In general, it is the practice of the police to read the charges against the accused when arresting a person, but in the case of Gamage it did not happen, and Cardinal Ranjith described the manner in which the conduct of the police was immoral and utterly anti-democratic.
Gamage is one of many activists campaigning for justice and the search for truth behind the alleged suicide bombings of Islamic terrorists.
Gamage, a Catholic activist, was unjustly arrested at the end of the year when Gotabhaya Rajapakse came to power, when he publicly questioned whether the bombings were probably used by politicians to overthrow the regime in the presidential election.