{"id":241637,"date":"2025-04-20T12:49:14","date_gmt":"2025-04-20T07:19:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=241637"},"modified":"2025-05-04T16:29:35","modified_gmt":"2025-05-04T10:59:35","slug":"stickergate-a-bell-that-tolls-for-all","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/stickergate-a-bell-that-tolls-for-all\/","title":{"rendered":"Stickergate: A Bell That Tolls For All"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Tisaranee Gunasekara<\/a> –<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis isn\u2019t just about Palestine, it\u2019s about everyone\u2019s right to dissent\u2026\u201d ~ <\/i>Clare Hinchcliffe (Middle East Eye \u2013 20.3.2025).<\/i><\/p>\n

Zo\u00eb Rogers is 21, English, a dog-lover. In August 2024, she, together with five others, crashed a modified prison van into Elbit Systems, an Israeli weapons manufacturing facility in Bristol. The six activists, part of a collective of political prisoners known as Filton 18, are in custody, awaiting trial.\"\"<\/p>\n

Ms. Rogers worked hard and gained a university placement, according to her mother Clare Hinchcliffe. Then Gaza intervened<\/span>. \u201cShe was horrified by the genocide and went on all the marches. But she could see nothing was working. (That\u2019s why) she decided on direct action. She would rather lose her liberty and her place in uni than hear of another child\u2019s death in Gaza\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen they ask me why I did it, I tell them about the children,\u201d Ms. Rogers wrote from prison. \u201cGaza was the first time I held a baby\u2019s brain in my hand. The first of many,\u201d wrote Jewish-American surgeon Mark Perlmutter<\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n

Mohammad Rusdi was 22, a Sri Lankan Muslim. Like Zo\u00eb Rogers, Mark Perlmutter, and countless people across the world, he too was haunted by the carnage Gaza<\/a><\/span>, especially the murder of children. Unlike Zo\u00eb Rogers, he didn\u2019t damage any Israeli asset. He merely exercised his constitutional right to free speech by pasting a sticker on a dustbin saying F!@# Israel.<\/p>\n

That simple act of peaceful protest was enough for Lankan police to investigate him as a terrorism suspect, arrest him under the PTA<\/a><\/span> on a 90-day detention order, play sadistic mind-games with his devastated family and, even demand that his 13-year-old sister be brought for questioning.<\/p>\n

At a 2024 meeting marking the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, Minister Bimal Ratnayake said that entire Sri Lanka stands in solidarity with Palestine. After interviewing Kokawewa Sumedha thero and other inhabitants of the historic village of Dutuweva in Anuradhapura, Beena Sarwar and Uditha Devapriya wrote how sympathy for Palestine and for Americans students protesting against the Gaza war are present across ethno-religious line and in \u201cthe most unlikely communities in the most unlikely places\u201d (The Sunday Island<\/i> \u2013 19.5.24). Of course there were bagatelle exceptions, like Udaya Gammanpila. In recent times, a very powerful institution has joined this motely band of pro-Israelis: Lankan police.<\/p>\n

According to SJB parliamentarian Mujibur Rahman, Mr. Rusdi is not the only Muslim targeted by the police for opposing Israel. A 31-year old Muslim man in Eravur has been questioned for writing, Allah will protect Palestine<\/i>, in a poem. In Colombo, the police went to the house of an organiser of an anti-Israel demonstration, a Muslim, looking for stickers (somebody somewhere is really prickly about those F!@# Israel stickers). Some of the questions the CCB reportedly asked are mind-boggling: Why do you call Netanyahu a terrorist? Why demonstrate here when Palestinian children are killed?<\/i><\/p>\n

Ceylon established diplomatic relations with Israel in the 1950 and broke them in 1971. They were partially re-established under President JR Jayewardene in the 1980\u2019s and broken by President Ranasinghe Premadasa in 1990\u2019s. Full diplomatic relations were established in 2000 under President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga. But Lankan leaders, across the political divide, were openly and consistently supportive of the Palestinian cause. In 1988, Sri Lanka became one of the first countries to recognise the independent state of Palestine. In 2023, Sri Lanka under President Ranil Wickremesinghe even opposed a Canadian amendment to a UN resolution explicitly condemning Hamas. No government, however repressive, however intolerant of dissent, cracked down on pro-Palestinian\/anti-Israeli activism. Until now.<\/p>\n

Why are Lankan police agitated about Netanyahu being called a terrorist or about demonstrations against the Gaza genocide? Who is giving these guidelines and orders? Our police may not know about Nelson Mandela (incidentally, Mr. Mandela was removed from the US terror-watch list only in 2008!), but the JVP, with its strong pro-Palestinian record, would remember his words: \u201cOur freedom is incomplete without freedom of the Palestinians.\u201d<\/p>\n

Currently, the police are limiting their pro-Israeli crackdown to Lankan Muslims. But if allowed to continue, it can extend to all Lankans opposing Israel\u2019s genocide, and even to dissent in general. After all, crackdown on peaceful pro-Palestinian activism is often how assaults on fundamental political freedoms begin – as the Harvard discovered this month.<\/p>\n

Resist the beginnings<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

In the US, they first came for pro-Palestinian demonstrators.<\/p>\n

Like so many American institutions, the Harvard, America\u2019s oldest university, bent over backwards to accommodate the demands of politicians who equated peaceful opposition to the Gaza genocide with anti-Semitism.<\/p>\n

Under President Donald Trump, political authorities are widening their suppressive dragnet to include fundamental academic freedoms. Their demands range from banning face masks<\/a><\/span> to testing faculty and students for their \u2018viewpoints\u2019. As Jan-Werner M\u00fcller, professor of politics at Princeton, wrote, this \u201c\u2026is not just an attack on academic freedom; it is a license to investigate individuals\u2019 minds and consciences\u201d.<\/p>\n

Welcome to 1984.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, Harvard decided to fight back. \u201cThe University will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights,\u201d it informed the government.<\/p>\n

\u201cResist the beginnings\u201d wrote Ovid. Precedents can be dangerous. A small, topical example should suffice. Wimal Weerawansa, in search for an issue, has faulted President Anura Kumara Dissanayake for not observing Sinhala and Tamil new year rituals in full public view. This practice of lighting the hearth and eating at the auspicious times on live TV was started by Mahinda Rajapaksa, as a propaganda gimmick. Before him, no Lankan leader, be it from the SLFP\/PA or UNP, observed any new year ritual in public. President Dissanayake made a commendable decision to eschew this Rajapaksa exhibitionist practice. The unjust criticism he is facing proves how dangerous some precedents can be.<\/p>\n

Like Stickergate.<\/p>\n

In the US, Jewish-American university professor Maura Finkelstein lost her tenure<\/a><\/span> for supporting the Palestinian cause (The Intercept<\/i> \u2013 26.9.2024). In the UK, Stephen Kapos, an octogenarian Holocaust survivor, was questioned by the Metropolitan Police after laying flowers at the Trafalgar Square during a Gaza protest.<\/p>\n

In Israel, history teacher Meir Baruchin, himself a Jew, was arrested for opposing the Gaza war. \u201cI became a \u2018Hamas supporter\u2019 because I expressed my opposition to targeting innocent civilians,\u201d Mr Baruchin said. \u201cMost Israelis don\u2019t know much about Palestinians. They think they are terrorists\u2026\u201d Rather like the Lankan police which seem to think that any Lankan Muslim supporting Palestine is a terrorist-in-the-making.<\/p>\n

There might be some perverted logic in Israel police\u2019s equation of opposition to Gaza war with support for terrorism. There is absolutely no rationale for Lankan police to think so.<\/p>\n

When President Dissanayake defends this inane and unjust police action, repeatedly, it creates concerns about the way the NPP government is headed. After all, the Rajapaksas began their own march towards unfreedom by arresting journalists under the PTA for alleged collusion with the LTTE. In November 2006, the TID arrested Mawbima journalist Parameswari Manusami under the PTA for helping the LTTE. Three months later, in February 2007, the TID arrested Dushantha Basnayake, the publisher of Mawbima, using the same pretext. Both were released by the supreme court when the police failed to present even a shred of evidence against them.<\/p>\n

The similarity between these two cases and what was done to Mohammad Rusdi needs no belabouring. The Rajapaksa actions fitted with the needs of their power project. There does not seem to be such congruency between the police crackdown on anti-Israeli activists and the NPP\/JVP agenda.<\/p>\n

So why Stickergate?<\/p>\n

In Sri Lanka, terrorists were first synonymous with Tamils, then, after 2019, Muslims. Now it seems a Muslim cannot even express solidarity with murdered Palestinian children without becoming a current or future terrorism suspect. The police were busy in 2024 arresting Tamil kanji-makers and questioning a Tamil writer regarding the whereabouts of a character in his novel. In 2025, it is occupied with terrorising Muslims for the such \u2018new crimes\u2019 as displaying anti-Israeli stickers, calling Netanyahu a terrorist (he is actually a genocider, something infinitely worse) or feeling grief and anger about the tens of thousands of Palestinian children killed by the Israeli army. That is of course when they are not providing tuition teachers with outriders and escort vehicles.<\/p>\n

The same police which could have prevented the 2019 Easter Sunday massacre with a few basic precautions and didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Eternal Recurrence?<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

The NPP government is supposed to reveal the \u2018mastermind\u2019 behind the Easter Sunday massacre tomorrow.<\/p>\n

The tale of a \u2018mastermind\u2019 was first birthed by Mahinda Rajapaksa two days after the massacre with his mention of a possible a foreign hand<\/b> behind the attack. In May, Wimal Weerawansa went the whole nine yards and said that the American Ambassador could be behind the attack, with Ranil Wickremesinghe\u2019s complicity, to turn Sri Lanka into a Libya or Syria (Lanka c news<\/i> \u2013 3.5.2019). The IS was an American instrument, Udaya Gammanpila informed the parliament. The US had trained Muslims to masquerade as Sinhalese and attack other Muslims, he also claimed; when Muslim countries protest, the West would invade Sri Lanka to keep peace (Lanka c news<\/i> \u2013 9.5.2019).<\/p>\n

Whether there was actually a mastermind and who that was remains to be seen. What is beyond doubt is that the Lankan police was warned about the impending attack by several foreign allies and failed to take even the basic precautionary steps.<\/p>\n

For example, the then head of the State Intelligence Services (SIS) Nilantha Jayawardane was the <\/span>first top official to receive concrete information about an impending attack. By April 21st<\/sup><\/span>, he knew the names of several potential attackers: Mohamed Zaharan, Mohamed Milhan, and Mohamedu Rilwan. If even one of these was arrested, the massacre might not have happened. As the Supreme Court pointed out, \u201cAll this shows that there was so much information that was available before Nilantha Jayawardena…but it cannot be said that Nilantha Jayawardena acted with alacrity and promptitude.\u201d In its final report, the Parliamentary Select Committee said that Mr. Jayawardena, defence secretary, police chief, chief of national intelligence and the director of military intelligence \u201cfailed in their responsibilities. All were informed of the intelligence information prior to the Easter Sunday attacks but failed to take the necessary steps to mitigate or prevent it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The supreme court ordered the government to revamp \u201csecurity systems and intelligence structures.\u201d Ranil Wickremesinghe didn\u2019t and its looks like the NPP won\u2019t. Instead, Anura Kumara Dissanayake\u2019s police are acting no different from Gotabaya Rajapaksa\u2019s police by using the PTA as an instrument of persecution against minorities. In 2020, Lankan police arrested Hejaaz Hisbullah and Ahnaf Jazim on charges of terrorism. In 2025, they arrested Mohamad Rusdi on charges of terrorism. The same police, worse inanities. And with much less reason. What is the connection between Sri Lanka\u2019s national security and a sticker saying F!@# Israel?<\/p>\n

Soon after the Easter Sunday Massacre, the funeral of a 13-year-old victim was held. She had died <\/span>while attending the Easter mass with her mother. Yet her funeral was held at Negambo Grand Mosque because her father was Muslim. Groundviews reported that \u201ca small group of are also present at the mosque; they pray and recite stanzas of the rosary over the body before it is borne away for burial.\u201d A common grief brought the two communities together. A common grief that could transcend, at least for a short while, the barriers of ethnicity and religion, and bridge the divide caused by the Easter Sunday massacre.<\/p>\n

The NPP came to power promising to heal those wounds. But, in power, it is allowing the police to create fresh grievances, in its name. The police, with its unjust action, have already destroyed the life of a 21-year-old whose only crime was to grieve for the murdered Palestinian children and to demonstrate his opposition to the genocide peacefully. Punishing such citizens is not the path to reconciliation and healing, but to anger, desperation, and new heartbreaks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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