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Law and JusticeSri Lanka

Sri Lanka: Christmas amnesty sees 1,000 freed from jail

Tanika Godbole
December 25, 2023

Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe granted a pardon to 1,004 convicts for Christmas. Many of them had been arrested for failing to pay outstanding fines.

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Christmas decorations are being displayed in Colombo, Sri Lanka, on December 23, 2023
Christmas is a popular festivity in the Buddhist-majority countryImage: Thilina Kaluthotage/NurPhoto/picture alliance

Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe granted a Christmas amnesty to 1,004 convicts across the country on Monday, a prison official told AFP agency.

Prison Commissioner Gamini Dissanayake said the freed prisoners had been jailed for not being able to pay outstanding fines.

Sri Lankan newspaper Daily News said that of the prisoners to be released, 989 were male and 15 were female inmates.

Buddhist-majority Sri Lanka also freed convicts in May to mark Vesak, the festival which celebrates Buddha's birth, enlightenment and death.

Amnesty follows even larger mass arrest

The latest pardon came after police arrested nearly 15,000 people during a weeklong military-backed anti-narcotics drive that was halted on the eve of Christmas.

Authorities said 13,666 suspects were arrested and nearly 1,100 addicts were detained and sent for compulsory rehabilitation at a military-run facility, China's Xinhua news agency reported.

Sri Lankan jails are chronically overcrowded. As of Friday, there were nearly 30,000 inmates in facilities designed to house 11,000, according to official data.

Edited by: Alex Berry