Sri LankaвЂ™s present is haunted by memories of the islandвЂ™s decades-long civil war, which began in 1983 and ended just over 10 years ago. Such growing disenchantment with the Sri Lankan government represents just one problem amongst the country's history of ethnic tensions. Some footage, for instance, вЂњshowed a young woman being tossed into a police vehicle, head first.вЂќ One of the protestвЂ™s organizers, Pubudu Jayagoda, indicated that the Sri Lankan government had been вЂњdownplaying coronavirus health risks,вЂќ implying that the police perhaps had ulterior motives and revealing his disillusionment with the governmentвЂ™s policing power. However, the policeвЂ™s ferocity was unsettling.

Police arrived at the demonstration and violently dispersed protesters-arresting at least 53 individuals-supposedly to enforce public health restrictions related to the COVID-19 outbreak. As the nation attempts to heal, Sri Lanka continues to sustain new injuries to its social and political structures that reveal much larger systemic problems. The country, after all, has its history of ethnic strife and is currently mending after the end of a long, brutal civil war. Sri LankaвЂ™s social issues also came to light at this protest. On June 9, 2020, Sri Lankans occupied the streets outside the US Embassy in Sri LankaвЂ™s capital, Colombo, in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement, holding signs condemning the racism, police brutality, and other maladies plaguing the United States.

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