1/Real-time updates on efforts to save #BrandonBernard from execution remind me of the chilling description by a prisoner of how executions used to happen in Sri Lanka. His description illustrates the cruel & inhumane nature of the death penalty. #AbolishTheDeathPenalty https://twitter.com/mtarm/status/1337202671376343043

2/“The day before execution, SP, CJ & executioner have to do a lot of things. They have to use sand bags to weigh prisoner, check his height & weight etc. Then they will hang the sand bag that weighs exactly like the prisoner & test the gallows and adjust the rope.

3/So, during this last week, jailor has to 100% check all the other cells and the cells where the man is going to be held to ensure there is nothing in the cell that the condemned man can use to kill himself. Apparently, you can’t kill yourself before the State can kill you.

4/I have seen a Buddhist monk or a Catholic priest visit the condemned man day before execution. Maybe they pray for the man & hope he won’t have another sad life like that ever again. There had been weeks where there were 2 to 3 executions. They won’t hang 2 ppl on the same day.

5/Executions always took place at 8.00 am. I think Prez always wrote that time. On days when executions take place, prison officers will first send all party ppl to work parties & lock the gates. Then all the other wards are locked. No prisoner can be outside of their wards/cells

6/In the condemned cells, individual cells are also locked. They keep outer main gate & inner gate to the prison wide open. This is the only time when both gates to the prison are kept wide open like that. You know that brass colour plate that is hanging by the search room now?

7/One man [a prisoner] will stand by this plate with a big metal club 100% alert. That’s because if someone comes in a hurry to the prison to stop the execution, because the prez had a change of heart, they must make sure this person can come inside even without a minute’s delay

8/You see, even a one minute delay means they will hang the man, whom prez ordered not to hang. So, when a messenger comes running, he must yell & tell the man with the iron club. Then the man with the iron club starts banging the brass coloured iron plate with all his might.

9/We have heard loud bang bang bang from work parties. You can hear the sound echoing all over prison. They can hear the sound all the way at gallows. Some ppl go to their death all silent. Some ppl go to their death shouting & screaming. Some ppl look like they have gone mental.

10/So, on days of execution you would either hear the loud bang bang bang or nothing or a loud yelling & screaming, crying & cursing of a man that is being hanged. Except that, you don’t even hear the sound of the wind on a day of an execution.”