News Digest

Sri Lanka’s president: Iglesias concert organisers should be whipped

Sri Lanka’s president has said organisers of a recent Enrique Iglesias concert should be “whipped with toxic stingray tails” because it was “uncivilised”. Maithripala Sirisena said the concert in the capital Colombo on 20 December went “against our culture”. He told a public meeting in the eastern district of Ampara local women ran on stage and kissed the singer while others threw their underwear at him.

I don’t advocate that these uncivilised women who removed their brassieres should be beaten with toxic stingray tails, but those who organised such an event should be.

Sri Lanka’s president Maithripala Sirisena

Whipping with the tails of stingrays was reserved for hardened criminals in medieval Sri Lanka and is used as a popular idiom for extreme punishment of wrongdoing. There has been no comment from the local organiser, Live Events, a company co-owned by Sri Lankan cricket stars Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene. In conservative Sri Lankan society, public displays of affection, even among married couples, is frowned upon. Police are known to have arrested courting couples for kissing in public.