Sri Lanka’s ambassador to Kuwait defends celebrations
April 25, 2010 08:16 pm
“We have held festivals and celebrations for 26 years, and we have never had any violations,” K.S.C. Dissanayake said.
“The celebrations by the community on Friday were going on smoothly, peacefully and within the confines of the law. Regretfully, people outside were fed the wrong information,” he was quoted as saying by Al Rai newspaper.
The day-long celebrations on Friday came to an abrupt end in
the afternoon when a group of Kuwaitis invaded the field of Al Jahra Stadium,
32 kilometres north-west of
Negotiations between the angry protestors who threatened to escalate the situation and the organizers lasted more than 30 minutes, but failed to end the deadlock, prompting the ambassador to urge the thousands of Sri Lankans to leave the stadium.
The police said that the organizers had all the required papers to hold the celebrations.
“There are around 110,000 Sri Lankans in
All participants were duly searched before being allowed to enter the stadium, organizers said.
“Our community has been in