• Activists, TUs, CSOs, academics and PTA detainees write to Justice Min. urging PTA repeal

Over 240 activists, trade unions (TUs), civil society organisations (CSOs) and movements, attorneys-at-law (AALs), the clergy, academics and detainees under the Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act, No. 48 of 1979 as amended (PTA) have written to the Justice Ministry Secretary calling for the immediate repeal sans replacement of the PTA without further delay, and criticised the alleged problematic composition of the committee appointed to consider a new anti-terror law. 

This month (May), a notice was published in newspapers, providing the public with two weeks to submit recommendations, comments or suggestions on repealing the PTA and new anti-terror laws. 

According to the letter, the “composition of the said committee betrays an ignorance of how such laws are implemented by a majoritarian administrative apparatus, and instrumentalised by racism. The committee is not representative of key interests - it includes largely State officials, military and Ministry of Defence personnel and does not include victims/victims’ families, or Tamil or Muslim community representation”. 

The signatories called on the Minister of Justice to seriously consider the wide-scale destruction of human life and potential, caused by the PTA, disproportionately to Tamil and Muslim communities, but also to southern youth during the 1988/1989 insurrection, student leaders during the recent people’s struggle, and on alternate/dissident political voices. The letter read” “The political intolerance bred by the use of the PTA, and the harm caused to our political culture by the maintaining of this oppressive law, is irremediable. Our experience is that this law has only been used for protecting authoritarian interests of the State. The PTA is a dangerous anti-terror law. It is extraordinary in nature (no judicial oversight at the first instance or Parliamentary oversight). The provisions on the admissibility of confessions (often extracted by way of torture) made to the Police, administrative detentions and Presidential powers to prohibit publications, are all abhorrent to the democratic rule of law and human rights. The excessive powers under the PTA have been abused for over 40 years, and victims and their families continue to suffer devastating personal consequences”. 

The Government has also made repeated commitments to repeal the law, including in the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council Resolution 30/1 of 2015. In 2022, the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka called for the “complete abolition of the PTA” and that “terrorism should be investigated under the general law of the country.” Sri Lanka has laws and institutions for countering terrorism. Sri Lanka’s scheme of criminal law that addresses terror offences includes at least 14 laws as well as various provisions under the Penal Code that create offences. Sri Lanka has also ratified UN conventions and adopted them into anti-terror specific laws. The country has a National Intelligence Service (both State and National), a Counter Terrorism Investigation Division and a Financial Intelligence Unit of the Central Bank. “This general legal system, subject to full judicial oversight, must form the response of the State to the ‘threat of terrorism’,” the letter elaborates. 

In conclusion, the letter recommended the immediate repeal of the PTA, and not attempting delaying tactics through the said committee working on another version. Further, according to the letter, the Government should also impose a moratorium on the application of the PTA. The letter also called on the authorities to ensure that no laws are enacted that empower the Police and the Executive to restrict the freedom of movement, the conducting of meetings, the ability to congregate, to have a rally or procession, or to make demands by any form of protest. Individuals and peoples pursuit of legitimate aspirations through democratic means should not be infringed upon in any manner by way of terror laws, the letter pointed out. The letter also called on the authorities to take measures to expedite justice to all currently detained under the PTA through political and legal interventions, including Presidential pardons, the withdrawal of charges if no evidence, or if the only primary evidence is through confessions, and the release of those not charged yet. They also called on the authorities to ensure reparations by the State for those who were detained under PTA and not convicted including acknowledgement, apology, compensation, physical and mental health care, and livelihood support, while reparations should also be provided to the families of those who died in custody when detained under the PTA.