{"id":45591,"date":"2016-03-08T01:11:36","date_gmt":"2016-03-08T05:11:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=45591"},"modified":"2016-03-08T02:40:25","modified_gmt":"2016-03-08T06:40:25","slug":"ranil-wickremesinghe-ensures-right-of-young-couples-to-be-in-public-places-without-being-harassed-by-security-guards-on-grounds-of-cultural-morality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=45591","title":{"rendered":"Ranil Wickremesinghe Ensures Right of Young Couples to be in Public Places Without Being Harassed by Security Guards on Grounds of Cultural Morality"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By<\/p>\n<p>P.K.Balachandran<\/strong><\/p>\n<p> Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe on Sunday sent out a powerful message to the island nation\u2019s security companies saying that  their guards have no right to harass un-married couples in public places on the basis of their own weird ideas of morality. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe PM has issued instructions to ensure that young people in this country can enjoy their freedom in a decent manner. This is the democracy we fought to establish in this country,\u201d said Dr.Harsha de Silva, Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs, who had intervened on behalf of a couple who were harassed by two guards at the Independence Square, a public place in  Colombo, last Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>The guards had told the couple that as per the Culture Ministry\u2019s instructions, couples, not accompanied by children, should be chased out.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>The couple not only had a heated argument with the guards but put out a video of it on the social media, prompting activists to call upon all couples in town to gather at the Square on Sunday for a confrontation with the cheeky guards.<\/p>\n<p>Among the hundreds who heeded the call was Minister  de Silva, who showed the errant guards a copy of the Culture Ministry\u2019s directions and demanded to know where it was said that couples not accompanied by children should be chased away.  The guards then contended that sitting close and holding hands are immoral.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSecurity guards seem to have got enormous power to chase couples away based on all kinds of weird interpretations of decency,\u201d the Minister said, and  informed the Prime Minister, who promptly terminated the contract given to the public sector LRDC Security Company, and asked it to sack its Director of  Operations<\/p>\n<p><em><br \/>\nCourtesy:New Indian Express<\/em><\/p>\n<div id=\"tweetbutton45591\" class=\"tw_button\" style=\"float:right;margin-left:10px;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/share?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdbsjeyaraj.com%2Fdbsj%2F%3Fp%3D45591&amp;text=Ranil%20Wickremesinghe%20Ensures%20Right%20of%20Young%20Couples%20to%20be%20in%20Public%20Places%20Without%20Being%20Harassed%20by%20Security...%20&amp;related=&amp;lang=en&amp;count=horizontal\" class=\"twitter-share-button\"  style=\"width:55px;height:22px;background:transparent url('https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-tweet-button\/tweetn.png') no-repeat  0 0;text-align:left;text-indent:-9999px;display:block;\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By P.K.Balachandran Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe on Sunday sent out a powerful message to the island nation\u2019s security companies saying that their guards have no right to harass un-married couples in public places on the basis of their own weird ideas of morality. \u201cThe PM has issued instructions to ensure that young people &#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=45591\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading &lsquo;Ranil Wickremesinghe Ensures Right of Young Couples to be in Public Places Without Being Harassed by Security Guards on Grounds of Cultural Morality&rsquo; &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45591"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=45591"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45591\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45592,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45591\/revisions\/45592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=45591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=45591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=45591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}