{"id":87510,"date":"2019-04-23T15:03:47","date_gmt":"2019-04-23T22:03:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=87510"},"modified":"2019-04-23T15:03:47","modified_gmt":"2019-04-23T22:03:47","slug":"condemning-the-terrorist-attack-on-easter-sunday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/04\/23\/condemning-the-terrorist-attack-on-easter-sunday\/","title":{"rendered":"Condemning the Terrorist Attack on Easter Sunday"},"content":{"rendered":"

Media Statement <\/strong>Federation of University Teachers\u2019 Associations<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

Easter Sunday of 2019 is destined to be yet another day of devastation\nthat our country will have to remember in the years to come. As we approach 10\nyears living in a country that is not at war with itself, we were hopeful that\nwe had put the days of mass destruction, bomb blasts and explosions, behind us\nfor good. Yes, there were problems; yes, there was much we could do better;\nyes, there was lot more work needed for ensuring reconciliation, justice and\npeace, but we did believe that the worst was behind us. The tragic events of\nyesterday, have proved otherwise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As university teachers, we appeal to our fellow citizens, not to\nlet the incidents of yesterday define who we are. We can be better than this\nand we will be better than this. Let us reach out first and foremost to the\nvictims of yesterday, their families and communities and to our neighbours and\nall our fellow citizens. Let us come together in our moment of grief and do\nwhat we can to comfort and support each other. As the long lines at the\nNational Blood Bank showed yesterday, and on numerous occasions before, we are\nmore than capable of coming together in times of crisis and tragedy. Let us not\nallow the rhetoric of hatred, division and communalism to keep us apart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We appeal strongly to our leaders to rise above petty political\ndivisions, and to demonstrate genuine statesmanship. We have suffered too long\nbecause of the squabbles and power struggles of our leaders. Indeed, power\nstruggles and pettiness of the political leadership in this country is responsible\nfor much of the suffering of our people. We urge you not to use the tragic\nevents of yesterday for political advantages but rather to reveal the truth to\nthe people and to ensure that victims and their families are supported. There\nis much work to be done to recover and move forward from this tragedy and that\nand nothing else, should be the priority for our leaders. As the university\ncommunity, we appeal to all students, teachers, non-academic staff and administrators\nto come together and stand against violence and extremism in all its forms\nwithin and outside our universities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We express our sincere condolences to those who lost their lives\nin the Easter Sunday attacks and extend our best wishes for the speedy recovery\nof all those who are injured. We also extend our support and appreciation to\nthe medical and security personnel who are working on our behalf during these\ndifficult times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rohan Laksiri                          Prof.\nRohan Fernando<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Secretary\/FUTA                     President\/FUTA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Media Statement Federation of University Teachers\u2019 Associations Easter Sunday of 2019 is destined to be yet another day of devastation that our country will have to remember in the years to come. As we approach 10 years living in a country that is not at war with itself, we were hopeful that we had put […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-87510","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-terrorism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87510","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87510"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87510\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}