Sri Lanka opposition leader arrested

Things seem to be going from bad to worse in Sri Lanka, as president Mahinda Rajapaksa continues to crack down following his disputed election victory last month: 

General Fonseka, a retired four-star general who lost to President Mahinda Rajapakse in the January 26 vote, was seized by military police who stormed the office of his People’s Liberation Front (JVP).

“They forcibly took away General Fonseka while he was having a discussion with three other senior opposition leaders,” a JVP spokesman said.

“He was dragged away in a very disgraceful manner in front of our own eyes,” added Rauff Hakeem, leader of the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress.

Fonseka had vowed to challenge the elections results in Sri Lanka’s supreme court, but may now be dragged in front of a judge on charges of plotting a coup.

The Sri Lankan government had hoped that the election — the first one since the end of the country’s decades long civil war — would put the country on a path to normalcy, but it’s only serving to confirm the worst fears about the government’s instability and Rajapaska’s authoritarian tendencies.