A complaint has been lodged with the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka over a post published on the official Facebook page of the Sri Lanka Police, which the complainants describe as threatening.

The complaint was made on 22 October, the Daily Mirror reported.

The post at issue was titled “Think twice before you open your mouth.”

Who complained

The complaint was brought by representatives of the organisation ‘YOUTH FOR CHANGE’. Three named office-bearers lodged it:

What the complaint turns on

The complainants’ objection is to the character of the message rather than to any individual enforcement action. The post was published on the police force’s own official page, which is what gives the wording its weight: an instruction to think twice before speaking carries a different meaning from a police account than from a private one.

The Human Rights Commission is the body with a mandate to examine whether official conduct infringes fundamental rights, which is the forum the complainants have chosen rather than a court.

No arrest, prosecution or named individual is reported as being involved. The complaint is directed at institutional messaging.

Not reported

The filing does not give the full text or the date of the Facebook post, say whether it remains published, or report what prompted it.

It does not carry any response from the Sri Lanka Police or the police media division, and does not report whether the Human Rights Commission has accepted the complaint for inquiry, assigned it a reference, or set a date to take it up.

It does not describe Youth for Change’s membership or affiliations, and does not report whether any other organisation has made a similar complaint.

On sourcing. One verified newsroom had filed on this complaint at the time of writing. Hiru’s homepage carried no item on it, and it did not appear on NewsFirst’s homepage. Ada Derana could not be checked, its site having returned a CloudFront block to this desk for more than a month.

Source: Daily Mirror.