Sri Lanka releases 1,000 prisoners for Christmas

Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe pardoned more than 1,000 prisoners in prisons across the country on Christmas.

Sri Lankan Prisons Department spokesman Gamini B. Dissanayake said 1,004 people, including 989 men and 15 women, were released on December 25 under a special amnesty. Among them were people who had been jailed for failing to pay fines.

Prisoners are released from a prison in Colombo, Sri Lanka, in February on the occasion of Independence Day. Photo: Xinhua

Sri Lanka has a majority Buddhist population. In May, the country released a number of prisoners to mark Vesak.

The latest amnesty comes after police arrested nearly 15,000 people in a weeklong military-backed anti-drug campaign that ended on Christmas Eve. According to a police statement, 13,666 suspects were arrested, and nearly 1,100 addicts were detained and sent to compulsory drug treatment at military-run facilities.

The island nation’s prisons are chronically overcrowded. As of December 22, nearly 30,000 inmates were housed in facilities designed to hold 11,000, according to official data.

Huyen Le (According to AFP, Xinhua )

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