Description

The Stand-up Comedian Natasha Edirisooriya was arrested by the Criminal Investigation Department after a video of one of her performances done in April, went viral after being published in the social media. Edirisooriya is one of the few practising women stand-up comedians in Sri Lanka, and a feminist who addresses issues concerning gender, sex, chauvinism and misogyny, moral and religious hypocrisy and other social issues through her creative work. In the video that led to her arrest, she talked about how parents compare their children with others, and how children feel about it. Further explaining this, she took the example of the Buddha’s childhood and presented how other parents might have compared their children with prince Siddhartha (Buddha), in order to communicate how ridiculous this comparison is. In doing so, she used terms such as “Suddhodana’s little one” to refer to Prince Siddhartha. The edited parts of her performance were released to social media platforms by nationalist groups, creating a lot of hate towards her in social media for which Police did not take any action. A number of Buddhist monks made multiple complaints against her to the Police. As the situation was gradually worsening, she attempted to leave the country. She was arrested in the early morning of 28th May at the Katunayake airport departure terminal immigration premises. After she was presented before the Fort magistrate in Colombo, she was initially remanded until 7th of June. Police charged her of committing an offence of “advocating for national, racial or religious hatred” under section 3 of the ICCPR Act of 2007 in Sri Lanka and deliberate intention of wounding religious feelings under Penal code. When charged under ICCPR Act, bail can be only granted by a high court.