Tag: placards

No More Street Cred

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Protestors in Sri Lanka’s capital, Colombo, demand the reinstatement of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and his United National Party government, in October 2018.

• 200mm • f/5.6 • 1/400 • ISO200 • 600D & EF-S18-200/3.5-5.6 • polariser •

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When it All Began #2

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Before it became the ‘Aragalaya’. Before it became a bandwagon for the JVP. Before the antharé and the political speeches and the Gotagogama. Just regular Sri Lankan people, desperate and angry and demanding change. Green Path, Colombo. 4th April 2022.

• 70mm • f/11 • 1/500 • ISO800 •

When it All Began

David BlackerLeave a comment
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Before it became the ‘Aragalaya’. Before it became a bandwagon for the JVP. Before the antharé and the street performers and the Gotagogama. Just regular Sri Lankan people, desperate and angry and demanding change. Green Path, Colombo. 4th April 2022.

• 120mm • f/5.6 • 1/400 • ISO400 •

A Day Too Late for Smiles

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Two young Tamil men from the north who had travelled a long way to be at the protests in Colombo on 9th July 2022. The placard accuses Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapakse and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe of playing games while the country was in ruins. They insisted I take their picture and, as word began to trickle through the crowd that Gotabaya had announced he would resign, I asked them to smile. They replied that though they were happy, it was too late for Sri Lankans to smile.

• 18mm • f/3.5 • 1/4000 • ISO400 •

Church, Temple, and that Old Red Line

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Anglican and Roman Catholic nuns calling for Sri Lankan President Gotabhaya Rajapakse and his government to step down, protest against the backdrop of the Nelum Pokuna Mahinda Rajapakse Theatre, a stark reminder of the wasteful policies of a regime that has brought the country to economic ruin. Colombo, April 2022.

• 18mm • f/3.5 • 1/800 • ISO800 •

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The Left of the Line

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While Sri Lanka is yet to see the widespread strike action expected to be launched by communist opposition parties like the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) — the National Liberation Front — trade unions have been visible from the very beginning of the Galle Face protests; presenting an older voice to what is often seen as a youth-led effort, calling for President Gotabhaya Rajapakse and his government to resign. Sri Lanka is suffering its worst economic crisis in modern history, and a large part of the blame for it has been apportioned to corruption and ineptitude within the Rajapakse government, studded with the president’s brothers and other relatives. The crisis, triggered by a lack of foreign currency reserves, has seen widespread shortages of fuel, cooking gas, and medicine, skyrocketing inflation, and electricity cuts as long as thirteen hours; the latter sparking the first protests in March, this year. While youth have been the visible face of the Colombo demonstrations, protests outside the city have often taken a harder edge; angry, older men, many of them fathers desperate to feed their families, clashing with police who have responded with tear gas, water cannon, rubber bullets and, on one occasion, with live ammunition, killing a protestor a week ago, in Rambukkana, less than 100km from the capital.
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Generation Go #2

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Inconclusive parliamentary posturing by the government and opposition has further angered protestors calling for the resignation of Sri Lankan President Gotabhaya Rajapakse and his entire cabinet. Corruption, ineptitude, and nepotism in the Rajapakse government has been blamed for the country’s crippling energy crisis. A cabinet reshuffle on 4th April failed to satisfy dissidents refusing to accept anything short of a complete change of government, and demonstrations continued throughout the week, all across the country, in small but consistent groups; and a massive million-strong protest has been announced for 9th April in Colombo.

Trilingual Dissent

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Ethnic divisions torn aside, at least momentarily, protestors in Colombo call for the resignation of Sri Lankan President Gotabhaya Rajapakse and his entire cabinet, blaming the country’s crippling energy crisis on the leadership’s ineptitude and corruption. Calling the protestors ‘extremists’, Rajapakse clamped down a 36-hour curfew on the weekend, and blocked social media and chat apps. When this failed to stop widespread demonstrations, the president announced a cabinet reshuffle, only to face enraged protestors on Monday and Tuesday who are refusing to accept anything short of a complete change of government. Sri Lanka, April 2022.

Betrayed by the Leaders We Defended

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Jampettah Street, Kochchikade, Colombo, Sri Lanka #2 by Son of the Morning Light on 500px.com
Residents of Jampettah Street in Kochchikade remain in shock five days after the devastating Easter Sunday suicide bombing killed over a hundred worshippers in St Anthony’s Shrine. Kochchikade, close to Colombo’s port, was once the constituency of Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe who, from October to December 2018, faced a constitutional coup triggered by President Maithripala Sirisena who sacked Wickremesinghe and his entire cabinet on October 26th and appointed opposition leader and former president Mahinda Rajapakse in his place (licensed to Polaris Images).
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Sri Lanka’s Karma

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Stage and television actor Arun Welandawe-Prematilleke (cast in ITV’s “Good Karma Hospital”) with pro-democracy protestors at the Liberty Rally in Colombo, on 30th October 2018, calling for the Sri Lankan Parliament to be reconvened.
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