Reports reaching us confirms that a Lankadeepa photo journalist has been taken into custody by the security personnel of the Kurunegala district parliament contestant Mahinda Rajapaksa for taking pictures of the Buddhist singhalese flags raised during an election campaign in Yatinuwara.
The incident was published in the Lankadeepa website as below
“Well build security personnel held one of our photographer by his shoulder and took him to a group of securities and took the custody of the camera until the flags were removed from the posts. They pretended they are from the police and intimidated us not to post those pictures”
According to the constitution of Sri Lanka the left side of the national flag have the orange and green color strips representing the Tamil and the Muslim community which marks the national unity.
The so called Sinhala flags which was used for the protests few days before did not have the two color strips marking the national unity.
Futher during the protest organized when the former defense secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa was called to the Bribery and Corruption there were allegation for displaying the Sinhale flag and for misusing and distorting the national flag
Campaign of Bodu Bala
Meantime the Bodu Bala Sena is contesting the coming election in the snake symbol by the name “Bodu Jana Peramuna” (BJP). BJP say that their party would campaign to legislate to change the countrys name as “Sinhale” in future and legislate the “Sinha Kodiya” which was used before 1815 and in 1948 as the national flag.
However although Mahinda’s UPFA and the Bodu Jana Peramuna (Bodu Bala Senawa) contest this election separately it appears from these incidents that their objectives are same.
