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Nathasha Edirisooriya is a Sri Lankan stand up comedian, social activist and mental health advocate.

She is one of the few practicing women stand-up comedians in Sri Lanka and female comedians to produce content in Sinhala language. She is also an independent artist, who performs on the invitation of organizations and public events. Nathasha creates her own content, performs live, and posts recordings of her routines online.

On 27 May 2023, Nathasha Edirisooriya was arrested by the Criminal Investigation Department of Sri Lanka (CID) at the Bandaranaike International Airport (BIA) alleging that her standup comedy shows made defamatory remarks against Buddhism. Nathasha’s arrest took place amidst a series of other ongoing controversies related to freedom of speech and religious disharmony in Sri Lanka. It caused widespread suspicion of deliberate attempts to create public disharmony in attempts to funnel the votes of the Sinhala Buddhist majority prior to elections. Nathasha’s arrest became a major controversy in Sri Lanka triggering an active public debate on the freedom of speech.

= Personal life =

= Professional life =

= Activism = Since 2019, Edirisooriya has actively contributed to debates and work in the area of Gender and Women’s rights. For example, in 2021 she conducted research titled ‘Decoding Sexual Harassment’ in an effort to understand the instigation of sexual harassment in Sri Lanka.

While working in areas of advocacy and rights, Edirisooriya identified a gap in effective interaction between research at an institutional level and ground realities. She chose to fill this gap by turning to self-reflective performance and storytelling, and chose stand-up comedy as a tool to analyse and communicate important issues effectively to large groups of people. She uses humour as an effective way of bringing people together to discuss sensitive and taboo subjects.

= Stand up comedy career = Nathasha Edirisooriya has actively created and defined a space for herself as a feminist who addresses issues of gender, sex, chauvinism and misogyny, moral and religious hypocrisy, education, family life and mental health through her stand-up comedy.

Much of Edirisooriya’s content is based on her own stories and her own experiences growing up as a Sinhala-speaking, Sinhala-Buddhist, Middle-class young woman in Sri Lanka. She also actively integrates into her stand up content, the insights she gains through her research as an activist in the areas of social development, gender, and women’s rights.

= Controversy = On 1 April 2023,   Edirisooriya performed a stand-up routine at a show called ‘Modabhimanaya’ (Fool’s pride)’ organised by Colombo Comedy Central (CCC). Her routine was called ‘Haiya’ and highlighted the insecurities and pressures that parents pass on to their children. In the show, she discussed a number of themes including sex, morality, and religious values. The above-mentioned complaints specifically related to two jokes that   Edirisooriya delivered during her routine. Neither joke incites discrimination, hostility, or violence against any national, racial, or religious group, nor in any way related to such incitement.

First,  Edirisooriya reflects on the competitiveness of modern-day parenting, and on how Sri Lankan parents constantly compare their children with other children. To demonstrate the point, she imagines how this approach may have played out in the era of the Lord Buddha, when he was a young prince or a small child. She jokingly asks the audience to imagine the pressure on the children who grew up with young Siddhartha when the rumours about his achievements as a child began to spread? She then acts out a scene where a contemporaneous (imaginary) parent compares their own children to the Lord Buddha when he was a child (referred to as ‘Sudhodhana’s child’). The translation of the sketch is as follows:

That Sudhodhana’s child, that child walked on the very day he was born... look at or kids, they can’t even keep their heads straight when they are carried; That Sudhodhana’s little fellow, apparently recited a poem the day he was born, look at these guys (she blows a spit bubble to indicate the level of ability of an average new born baby); Sudhodhana’s little boy, decided on the day he was born what he wanted to do with his life... our kids wait on us to do everything for them. The child’s mother is not even around, these guys have both a mother and a father, what’s the point? They are spoilt.

This is the first joke delivered by   Edirisooriya that the CID alleges is an offence under the ICCPR Act. It is reiterated that the Act criminalises advocacy of national, racial, or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility, or violence, and does not criminalise offending any particular religious group. However, despite its clear scope, the Act has come to be deployed as an anti-blasphemy law in Sri Lanka.

Second,   Edirisooriya reflects on her own experience at a Buddhist all-girls school, and on how the emphasis on maintaining and protecting chastity in her school (and other schools like hers) has turned these schools into ‘virgin factories’. She then goes on to suggest, in jest, that when violent Islamist terrorists commit suicide expecting to be rewarded with 72 virgins in heaven, the majority of these virgins must surely come from schools like the one she attended. This is the second joke that the CID alleges is an offence under the ICCPR Act.

On 23 May 2023, CCC released a video of   Edirisooriya’s stand-up routine (on 1 April) as marketing material for another comedy show scheduled on 27 May. Edirisooriya also published the same video on her YouTube channel.

On 24 May 2023, Edirisooriya began to be attacked on social media for allegedly insulting Buddhism. She was threatened with physical and sexual violence (including attacking with acid, stripping, raping, gang raping, beating, burning, and killing). Some of the attacks spread disinformation that she is Christian, when in fact,   Edirisooriya comes from a Buddhist background. Moreover, details of   Edirisooriya’s residential address were posted online by one Dan Priyasad, a known militant organiser, encouraging others to commit acts of violence against   Edirisooriya.

On 24 May 2023, CCC initiated a recorded public apology online, which featured Edirisooriya’s apology for posting her performance on her YouTube channel. She also stated that she had no intention of insulting Buddhism or any religion. She thereafter removed the video of her performance.

Despite the retraction and apology, online attacks against   Edirisooriya continued, and a receipt of a police complaint filed by Buddhist monk, Ven. Balangoda Kassapa Thera dated 27 May 2023 was shared online. At this juncture, no summons nor arrest warrants were issued against   Edirisooriya.

= Arrest = On 27 May 2023, Edirisooriya was detained by immigration officials at the BIA while she and her partner sought to depart to Singapore to be reunited with relatives residing in Singapore. No arrest warrant was produced at the time of the detention. Immigration officials only informed Edirisooriya that there was a travel ban against her, and that the CID had requested that she be detained until they arrived. Edirisooriya was subsequently taken into custody by the CID at approximately 11.00PM and transferred to the CID headquarters in Colombo.

On the morning of 28 May 2023, the CID initially refused Edirisooriya access to her lawyers or her partner. When access was subsequently granted, her partner was asked to handover Edirisooriya’s phone, which was examined by the CID in his presence and returned.

In the evening of 28 May 2023, Edirisooriya was taken by the CID to her residence for an inspection following which several joke books with her notes were seized from her home.

Edirisooriya was produced before the Colombo Fort Magistrate on 28 May 2023. At the hearing, the CID informed the Magistrate that Edirisooriya was arrested under section 3 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights Act of 2007, which prohibits the advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence. Edirisooriya is accused of insulting Buddhism and committing an offense under the ICCPR Act during her performance of a stand-up comedy routine on 1 April 2023 to a live audience. The CID claimed that several persons including the Commissioner of Buddhist Affairs and a number of Buddhist monks had made complaints against Edirisooriya.

At the hearing before the Magistrate, Edirisooriya’s lawyer made an application for bail. However, the Magistrate denied the application and placed her in remand custody at the Colombo Remand Prison until 7 June 2023, and later extended this to June 21 2023. = External links =