Sri Lanka did not sign Optional Protocol 2 banning capital punishment - Dayasiri Jayasekara

Colombo (News 1st): General Secretary of the SLFP, Dayasiri Jayasekara expressing his views about capital punishment at an SLFP media briefing noted that many countries agreed on banning capital punishment according to 1989, Optional Protocol 2. He added that then all those countries who agreed on it unanimously came to decision to omit the death sentence from their law. However, he said no one in Sri Lanka omitted it by bringing a law against this. MP Jayasekara said he does not like capital punishment to a certain extent, as a Sinhala Buddhist, and as a lawyer. He pointed out that Ranil Wickremesinghe says that the UNP will not allow this. Therefore, he posed a question to the PM, "Why didn't you sign the 2nd Optional Protocol since 1989 if you were not willing to accept this?" MP Jayasekara noted that if that was done, Sri Lanka would have been among the countries who said no to capital punishment since 1989. He added that the same regime still operates and if this was signed back then, capital punishment would be an invalid factor in Sri Lanka now. He went onto note that there is no point about opposing this on a policy basis without signing that protocol.