By Sena Thoradeniya

Julie Chung, the Korean – American ‘Viceroy’ of Sri Lanka having climbed Sri Pada, with pilgrims and fellow adventurers appreciating the natural beauty”, enjoying the magnificent views at sunrise” on 19 January 2024 (how Chung saw a dissimilarity between ‘pilgrims’ and ‘adventurers’ is the biggest question! She does not bring Lord Buddha, Lord Shiva, Adam or St Thomas to her discussion stopping short at saying interfaith reverence”. Very good), issued a statement criticizing the Online Safety Bill (OSB) on 25 April 2024.

We quote her X message: The United States remains concerned about the potential impact of Sri Lanka’s Online Safety Bill, which passed yesterday without incorporating important input from key stakeholders, including civil society and tech companies who say that this legislation threatens freedom of expression, innovation and privacy”.

In addition to jeopardizing democratic values, vague and overly restrictive legislation can hinder investment and development of a digital economy, undermining the economic growth that Sri Lanka needs. The US urges Sri Lanka to prioritize transparency and ensure any legislation does not stifle the voices of people”.

This message clearly exemplifies how Julie Chung interferes with the internal affairs of Sri Lanka again and again. The terminology and phrases she uses and the potential impact” she predicts in her message are all borrowed from the so-called human rights organizations, tech companies (all American) and above all else from political parties which opposed the OSB in the Parliament. A wag told the writer that Chung as ‘Viceroy’ of Sri Lanka, who had failed to attend Parliamentary Sessions to participate in the OSB debate, because of her pains and aches due to climbing a majestic mountain, now participates in the debate that ended a few days ago!

How she arrived at the conclusion, without incorporating important input from key stakeholders, including civil society and tech companies”, inlessthan a day is anybody’s guess. She has a penchant to make such statements. Without reading a line in Wimal Weerawansa’s book, she condemned it as fiction”.

But the purpose of this piece is not to remark on Chung’s Sri Pada adventure and comments on OSB and our views on OSB. We urge her: to clean up your own backyard at Alabama before you try to clean up Sri Lanka’s backyard. 

On January 25, 2024 Alabama executed a convicted murderer, Kenneth Eugene Smith, 58 with nitrogen gas, for killing a woman in 1988, the first time in history this new method has been used.  He died after breathing pure nitrogen gas through a face mask causing oxygen deprivation. The man has suffered for 22 minutes. For at least 2 minutes he appeared to shake and writhe on the gurney (wheeled stretcher), pulling against the restraints. It was followed by several minutes of heavy breathing until breathing stopped. Another inhuman act was that Smith was not allowed a meal in the 8 hours leading to the execution.

This execution was criticized as cruel, barbarous, uncivilized, experimental and would bring indelible shame. His lawyers argued that the state was making him the test subject for an experimental execution method that could violate constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment, deserved more legal scrutiny before it was used on a person.

The state had previously attempted to execute Smith in 2022 but the lethal injection was called off at the last minute because authorities could not connect an IV line. In such a situation did not Smith deserve a reprieve? If a similar thing happened in Sri Lanka how will Julie Chung react? We still remember how Chung wept buckets of tears for that Rambukkana arsonist, the scalping marauders at Galle Face and lately drug peddlers roped by Yukthiya” operation.

Hitler used gas vans – mobile gas chambers to kill prisoners using exhaust gas. He used gas chambers for mass killings by carbon monoxide poisoning and by using hydrogen cyanide. US used gas chambers to execute death row inmates since 1924. Subsequently lethal injections were used, injecting one or two drugs.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor along with two other justices dissented. She wrote: Having failed to kill Smith on its first attempt Alabama has selected him as a guinea pig to test a method of execution never attempted before”.    

Ill-effects of Nitrogen to human body according to scientists are: Nitrogen replaces oxygen and lead to suffocation, rapid burning, spasms, swelling of tissues in the throat and respiratory tract, reduced oxygenation (adding oxygen) of body tissues, buildup of fluid in the lungs and death.

Can Julie Chung explain us that this a more humane method of execution?   

Compared to the atrocities committed against Black Americans, devastation in Indo-China and Korea, massacres in Latin America, Central America, Africa, Iraq, Libya and Gaza by the Americans, this incident is like a droplet in the vast Indian Ocean. Fortunately, this happened in America, saving Julie Chung’s time in uploading another message!