An interview conducted by the Asian Human Rights Commission. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the AHRC.
Sri Lanka — A woman speaks out against bad policing and torture
Thamara is a mother who had to go to a police station to report domestic violence. She tells us of her experiences.
What do you think about the policing system in your country?
In any police station there are good and bad officers. Due to the bad behaviour of many officers now they are all thought of as being bad. This is the impression of everyone, that all the police officers are bad.
I think that this policing system should be changed. A woman finds it difficult to go to a police station alone. There is bad talk, bad jokes and bad behaviour. We go to the police stations when we are in powerless situations but their reactions to us are not good. So, it would be good if we could have some changes in this system. The police officers who do wrong things should not be allowed to work as police officers. Now they may receive some small punishment for the things they do but they continue to do them and work as police officers.
The job of the police is to catch wrongdoers and punish them, but they themselves do wrong things and they are not punished. This doesn’t work. Those officers who do wrong things should not be allowed to continue working as police officers.
What do you think about the use of torture?
This is something that should be talked about a great deal more because a lot of innocent people go to police stations. They are taken on suspicion and almost immediately they are assaulted by the officers. What they should do is ask some questions and find out what has happened so that they can take some action; but instead they immediately resort to assaulting the suspect.
I don’t think this is correct; I really don’t like what is happening. What they should do is look into things and then take the proper action. People have died at the police stations because of this and I really don’t approve of this kind of behaviour.
What are your views on the public relations of the police?
Sometimes there are good reactions by the police for good things; sometimes they do good things in public functions. But they also take bribes and give assistance to known criminals. Suppose I give them a bribe to have a person arrested and harassed, they will do that. And that is not a good thing. Sometimes there are good relationships but often the bad things are there in a very prominent way.
If you have a problem would you go to a police station to get help?
Now I can talk from my own experience as I went to a police station for a personal problem. When I went to the station the officer who was dealing with this particular matter was not there. There was a good police officer and he told me, “Don’t come to the police station alone. That is very bad. You’d better go now and return with somebody later”.
As for my complaint, the police did make some inquiries but didn’t do a really good job on the case and as a result there was no real justice. This was a case of domestic violence.
Is there a domestic violence law in your country and what is your opinion of it?
I went through a domestic violence dispute and I can tell you what happened. When I was there at the station to complain, another woman was there talking about an incident in which her husband got drunk and beat her. The police went to arrest the man but returned, saying that they could not find him. Later the woman returned to the police station to complain that the man was threatening to hurt her. The police officer said to her, “So you haven’t actually been beaten up yet, you are only afraid that you will be beaten up? So come back after he beats you up”. This is obviously not the right attitude. If the woman gets beaten up, or perhaps even killed, then what is the use of the police taking action then?
A woman does not go to a police station just for fun. She goes because things are very bad and even desperate. So the attitude of the police in this case was not correct in my opinion
