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While many were concerned about the spike in the number of drug users on World Drug Day, June 26, Sri Lanka decided to hang four drug dealers, bringing back capital punishment to the country after 43 years. President Maithripala Sirisena said on Wednesday that he had signed the death warrants, while government spokesperson Rajitha Senaratna told South China Morning Post that “From now on, we will hang drug offenders without commuting their death sentences.”Since 1976, Sri Lanka has reduced many death sentences to prison for life, but authorities now believe a tougher approach is needed to combat the rise in drug-related offences. Drug trafficking is a capital offence in Sri Lanka and authorities are convinced the country is being used as a centre of transit by peddlers. The number of drug-related arrests shot up to 81,156 in 2017, a 2 percent increase from the previous year, and there have been cases of people cracking drug deals even from behind bars. While 19 drug offenders have been sentenced to life imprisonment, it is not clear if this shift in policy could affect their sentence.Sri Lanka planned to go through with this punishment after its President paid a visit to the Philippines and praised President Rodrigo Duterte’s crackdown against drugs, which saw more than 4,200 drug dealers being killed for resisting being arrest, as “an example to the world”.Meanwhile human rights groups, foreign governments and the EU have all criticised Sirisena’s recommendation to revive the death penalty, and are worried that it could risk killing innocent people as well and could be a crime against humanity.While capital punishment is on a global decline, a new report by Amnesty International revealed that the top five countries that executed people in 2018 are all in the Asian continent, while a previous one had noted that hanging drug dealers will not curb the crime.Follow Shamani Joshi on Instagram .
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