Mannar youth poet in TID custody: Defence counsel complain of lack of access

28 Jan 2021

Mannar youth poet in TID custody: Defence counsel complain of lack of access

28 Jan 2021

By Ruwan Laknath Jayakody Legal counsel appearing on behalf of Mannar-based poet Mannaramudhu Ahnaf Jazeem, who is presently detained by the Terrorism Investigation Division (TID), have complained of being denied access to their client, despite multiple written and verbal queries made from the TID including its Director, The Morning learnt. The 25-year-old is being detained under the Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act (PTA) for allegedly promoting Islamist extremism and terrorism. This complaint was made when the case (B 13101/19) was taken up at the Colombo Fort Magistrate’s Court yesterday (27) in connection with the case of Attorney-at-Law (AAL) Hejaaz Hizbullah who is also detained at present in connection with the investigations into the Easter Sunday bombings on 21 April 2019. A team of counsel including President’s Counsel A.A.M. Illiyas and AALs Swasthika Arulingam, Jayantha Dehiattage, Sanjaya Wilson Jayasekera, and Tharindu Rathnayake appeared on behalf of Ahnaf. Although Criminal Investigations Department (CID) and TID officers were present for the prosecution, there was no representation from the Attorney General’s Department yesterday. The case was fixed for 24 February. Wilson Jayasekera, speaking to The Morning, said that they would file an urgent motion in the interim, to make an application and submissions, seeking the poet’s release on several grounds. “One of the grounds is for him to be produced before the Magistrate. The other is citing arbitrary arrest and detention, especially because the initial detention order had been signed by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa in May 2020, when the 19th Amendment to the Constitution was operative, under which only the Minister of Defence could issue such. Another ground is that the Police have submitted incorrect facts to the court while the final one is seeking a report containing a summary of the evidence.” According to print and web media reports, Ahnaf had been arrested on 16 May 2020, while a detention order valid for three months had been issued under the hand of the President, followed by detention orders being extended subsequently. Speaking to The Morning, Afham R.M. Razmin, Ahnaf’s elder sibling, based in Pandaraweli, Silawathura, Mannar explained that the CID had initially taken Ahnaf to Vavuniya for questioning and subsequently brought him back home, asked him to gather some clothes and collected all his books, and then took him away. He is presently in the custody of the TID. According to Razmin, the reason for Ahnaf’s arrest is that copies of a poetry collection titled “Navarasam” authored and published in Tamil by him in July 2017, which the investigating law enforcement authorities allege promotes Islamist extremism and terrorism, had been found on the premises of a school (named School of Excellence) building in Madurankuliya, Puttalam, belonging to the Save the Pearls organisation, the latter which is linked to Hizbullah. Ahnaf along with other teachers had been conducting after-school tuition classes for village children at the said building situated in the property owned by Save the Pearls. The school in question is being investigated by the CID for allegedly promoting Islamist extremism and alleged links to the Easter Sunday terror attacks. The first mention of Ahnaf’s Navarasam in a legal setting, came up when the case connected to Hizbullah was taken up in September 2020. Following an order by the Colombo Fort Magistrate’s Court, a particular literal, word-for-word sworn translation of the book had been evaluated by child psychiatrists at the Lady Ridgeway Hospital for Children on the basis that it had been circulated among minors, and a print media news report quoted the said report by the child psychiatrists as declaring that some of the poems in the book “incites violence, arouses sexual feelings, promotes suicide, glorifies death, talks of perceived injustice against Muslims across the world, and incites hatred against the perpetrators of violence” and therefore is deemed harmful to children. Razmin added that they will be filing a fundamental rights petition before the Supreme Court in this regard, and Wilson Jayasekera noted that at present, the petition is being drafted. Article 14 (1) (a) of the Constitution guarantees the freedom of speech and expression including publication. “This is completely anti-democratic and is a death-blow to the freedom of expression and art. This is a continuation of attacks on artists and writers who are critical of the society and the political system. Ahnaf is the latest victim in a series of such arbitrary arrests and prosecutions involving a short story writer, a film director, a commentator and social media activist, a lawyer, and journalists under this Government. The Police or the prosecutors cannot understand literature and arbitrarily arrest writers to impose fear and to subjugate critical thinking. These arrests and the whole campaign are directed at entrenching anti-Muslim racism to divide the working people and the masses along racial lines. All those who value democratic rights and the freedom of art should protest against this arrest and detention and demand the immediate and unconditional release of Ahnaf,” claimed Wilson Jayasekera, who is also the President of the Action Committee for the Defence of the Freedom of Art and Expression. The complaint lodged with the mobile office of the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka (HRCSL) in Mannar by the family of Ahnaf, has been transferred for inquiries to the HRCSL head office in Colombo. Meanwhile, in opposition to the arbitrary arrest and detention of Ahnaf, the Sri Lanka Young Journalists’ Association has also lodged a complaint with the HRCSL seeking the latter’s intervention.

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Mannar youth poet in TID custody: Defence counsel complain of lack of access

Mannar youth poet in TID custody: Defence counsel complain of lack of access

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