Will memes about politicians now get Sri Lankans thrown in jail?

Even in the darkest of times, Sri Lankans held on to their sense of humor.

In 2022, as the island’s economy collapsed and the government announced a QR code system to ration gasoline, a meme spread online: “Scanning the QR code for fuel makes you forget the past three months.”

And as public anger forced the strongman president to flee his palace, while protesters ventured in to fry snacks in his kitchen and jump into his pool, another meme captured the mood of their departure: “We’re leaving. The key is under the flower pot.”

It is this type of online speech, which has fueled Sri Lanka’s largest grassroots movement in decades, that activists and rights groups fear are now in jeopardy.

They are concerned about a new law, the Online Safety Act, which gives the government extensive powers to consider statements on social media as ‘prohibited statements’. Under the law, a commission appointed by the president will decide what is prohibited, and violations can lead to penalties ranging from fines of hundreds of dollars to years in prison.

Public Security Minister Tiran Alles told Parliament the legislation would protect against online fraud, the spread of false information and the abuse of women and children. But he also made clear its potential political applications, saying it could be used against those who insult MPs on social media.

Sri Lanka is taking a cue from other countries in the region that are increasingly monitoring what people say online, most notably Bangladesh, where a 2018 law known as the Digital Security Act has led to the jailing of activists and opposition leaders.

The Sri Lankan law “is the latest weapon in the government’s arsenal of tools that can be used to undermine freedom of expression and suppress dissent,” said Thyagi Ruwanpathirana, a South Asia regional researcher at Amnesty International, adding that the act “was ripe.” for abuse.”

Ms Ruwanpathirana said the Sri Lankan government must “demonstrate the political will to uphold international human rights obligations” as the country will hold its first elections since the 2022 crash this year.

The main impetus for the new law, according to analysts, is the protest movement that toppled the government in 2022.

Political leaders want to ensure there is no repeat, the analysts say, a concern that persists as the movement’s goals remain largely unfulfilled. While the powerful president, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, was forced out of office in 2022, little else changed at the top. The political elite has merely reshuffled its seats, and Mr Rajapaksa’s political party has backed a new president, Ranil Wickremesinghe, until elections later this year.

Mr Wickremesinghe, a veteran politician, is trying to turn the economy around, making difficult budget changes to improve the government’s balance sheet. But activists and rights groups say he has also gone after civil society leaders who have played key roles in the civil movement.

“We saw many using social media to criticize, challenge and push back on various state initiatives, so social media played a big role in popular mobilization,” said Bhavani Fonseka, a senior researcher at the Center for Policy Alternatives, in the Sri Lankan capital Colombo. “That provides a new incentive for the government to introduce restrictions.”

Nalaka Gunawardena, a Colombo-based analyst, said the political intentions of the new legislation were made clear by officials’ refusal to amend it to better balance freedom of expression with the government’s concerns about online abuse.

By rushing through the legislation, Mr. Gunawardena said, the government rejected suggestions from media experts and rights activists who pushed for an exception for those engaged in satire and parody.

Historically, satirists in Sri Lanka have faced trouble and even exile for targeting the majority Sinhalese community or the powerful Buddhist monks. During the decades of the country’s bloody civil war, which ended in 2009, military leaders — especially Mr. Rajapaksa, who served as defense minister — were increasingly off limits.

When a coalition government briefly broke the Rajapaksa family’s hold on the country in 2015, political satire began to flourish online: the new president, Maithripala Sirisena, was a favorite of meme makers.

The elevation of the feared Rajapaksa to the presidency in 2019 initially caused some hesitation, but as his management of the economy sent the country into a tailspin, cartoonists and satirists saw little to lose.

The administrator of a popular, anonymously run meme page called NewsCurry, which has about 50,000 followers on social media platforms, said such efforts had drawn attention to anti-democratic behavior and lies by politicians, making the local news media docile. The new law, said the administrator, who asked not to be named for fear of clashing with authorities, should be renamed the Security for Politicians Law.

Hamza Haniffa, who is part of a group that runs meme pages, said the law has made many of his friends reluctant to continue making jokes. Messages have become less frequent.

“During the protest movement, we expressed our opinions without being afraid,” he said. “But now we are concerned.”