Got arrested for the first time in my life today. Saw the dark underbelly of the Sri Lanka Police. Rife racism, bad language, a complete disregard for human courtesy, but also saw a ton of decent chaps who really hold up their own. I think they would thrive in the private sector.

They refused to take down my statement as per my instructions and I was forced to sign it under duress. One in particular was quite the third-grade dog. He was most annoyed that I didn't give in to the hopelessness. I stood absolutely straight for 3 hours or more all the while...

crossing my hands, shoulders back, back straight as I was taught and humming "Het Lieve Vaderland" under my breath.
I promised myself that I wouldn't cow down in the face of my "wrongful arrest". Of course the give in was in consideration of the fact that I wouldn't want to...

Spend a year in court.
Made a few friends. Two fellow Burgher boys arrested for the same crime (mask-less face). They admitted they weren't wrongfully arrested.
I won't lie there was a bit of elite privilege involved.
Made me think of everyone else who was not born into privilege

Nonetheless, I believe very strongly that its time #SriLanka has our version of the Miranda rights, the right to an attorney during your statement (to avoid duress) and basic regulations on arrest.
#lka #SL

I didn't even know I was arrested till they locked me up. I was read no rights, I was penalised for asking for a friend to translate the written statement written in Sinhala (not my mother tongue nor my mother's tongue). Although I can speak, my reading hasn't been in...

practice since OLs, let alone PC buffoon's near illegible handwritting (which he struggled to decipher to my friend). They made me walk around barefooted (outside the cell), mostly as an exercise in humility but unwarranted. Any expression of independence was treated like murder.

Add to it I wasn't given a court summons which I was made to sign without reading so heaven knows if I even have to turn up in courts.
Even the nice people couldn't iron out my disgust for the system.

On the bright side, at least a project for the rights of prisoners just found its way into my year plan for #Rotaract next year.

Also third-grade dog aka PC Bafoon made an extremely offensive racist statement. Against #Muslim, not Burghers, for the short time that my NIC created the confusion. My attempt to understand the confusion led to the Enlightenment that names begining with the letter 'F' have...

either an European or Arabic origin. In SL more commonly Arabic than European.
Does not excuse his racism!

Basically to summarize I was stuck in the "Stanford Prison experiment" and sustained only by my pride.

My family always told me it would be my hamartia. Perhaps, if I was in there longer, but today, it helped me remember who I was!

Het Lieve Vaderland!