Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe yesterday called on the Bar Association of Sri Lanka (BASL) to provide input on formulating new legislation to tackle hate speech.
Acknowledging that laws alone cannot prevent violence, the Premier however pointed
out Sri Lanka needs to correctly define hate speech considering the boundaries of freedom of speech.
“There are different examples from other countries that we can use.
“The Chinese have created their own firewall while others want to go easy. A bill has been presented in the Philippines senate. But some form of effective patrolling of social media is necessary given that promulgation of hate speech on the platform is on the rise,” Wickremesinghe noted.
Citing the example of recent data from Google Search Trends, where search for ‘Molotov cocktails’ and ‘How to make a petrol bombs’ showed a dramatic increase during the wake of violence in Kandy, the Premier said the government requires both legal and technical advice to take action to prevent hate speech.
“The recent turn of events in Kandy was a good example of both the good and the bad uses of social media. While the ban on Facebook disrupted businesses on most of the homestays and boutique hotels in Central region and other parts, the same was used to utilized to instigate violence,” he said. Prime Minister Wickremesinghe was speaking at the 44th Convention of the Bar Association of Sri Lanka (BASL) where BASL President elect U.R. De Silva PC was inducted for the year 2017/2018 by Attorney General Jayantha Jayasuriya PC.
Chief Justice Priyasath Dep, President of the Court of Appeal Justice Padman Surasena and Solicitor General Dappula De Livera PC and Judges of the Supreme Court and other Courts were among the invited guests at the induction ceremony held at MILODA Centre of Financial Studies, Colombo 1.
At the event, the Premier insisted that the government was not looking to bar people’s freedoms by taking cover behind recent incidents in Ampara and Digana where Muslim businesses and property were targeted by extremists.
“As the economy is recovering, we must not let the emergence of hate culture drag the country down. We want to ensure that this (violent incidents) does not expand,” he insisted.