Comedian Nathasha Edirisooriya cleared of blasphemy in Sri Lanka

SRI LANKA’S state prosecutor last Wednesday (19) withdrew charges against a stand-up comedian for a joke which police said insulted the country’s Buddhist majority.

Nathasha Edirisooriya, who had been jailed for more than a month before finally securing bail, said she felt vindicated after the Colombo Fort magistrate officially cleared her of blasphemy.

“I am greatly relieved that this ordeal is over,” 33-year-old Edirisooriya told AFP, soon after the case was dismissed. Her producer, Bruno Divakara, was also cleared.

The prosecution was seen by rights activists as emblematic of Colombo’s use of blasphemy laws—and Sri Lanka’s controversial International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR)—to stifle individual freedoms.

Edirisooriya was arrested in April 2023 and imprisoned for 39 days after police said they were charging her under the ICCPR Act, which prohibits magistrates from granting bail to suspects. However, she appealed and secured her bail in July last year.

The case dragged on until last Wednesday when the attorney-general finally decided not to proceed. “This whole prosecution is a joke,” Edirisooriya said. “It is a great use of taxpayers’ money. Be careful with what you write,” she cautioned. “I don’t want to get arrested again.”

During a show in Colombo, Edirisooriya had joked about peer pressure that parents face today, suggesting that it may have been greater during the time of the Buddha. The reference to the Buddha, though seemingly inoffensive, angered some influential Buddhist monks who complained against her skit which had been shared on social media.

Several international rights organisations and foreign embassies closely followed her controversial case as an assault on free speech.

The Washington-based Freedom House watchdog said Edirisooriya’s case highlighted emerging risks.

“In recent years, the Sri Lankan government has exploited existing laws to unfairly target freedoms of expression, speech, and assembly,” the rights group said in its latest report.

“The ICCPR Act was passed under the pretext of protecting minorities from hate speech, but has largely been used to unfairly target those at the margins of society.”