Human Rights Watch urges Sri Lanka to scrap terrorism act

COLOMBO: Human Rights Watch has urged Sri Lanka to repeal its Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA), claiming the island nation has used it to target perceived opponents and minority communities without credible evidence to support the allegations.

The New York-based rights group also urged the US, UK and the EU to prevail upon Sri Lanka to repeal the law, which it has not done despite repeated pledges to end the practice.

While some victims have suffered years of arbitrary detention and torture, others are persecuted even after the case against them is dropped,” Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a statement on Wednesday.

There is no mention whatsoever of any immediate reason for the organisation to come out with a statement.

“Sri Lanka’s extensive domestic security apparatus routinely uses baseless accusations of terrorism to target innocent people, silencing critics and stigmatising minority communities,” HRW Deputy Asia Director Meenakshi Ganguly said.

Sri Lanka has come under repeated and increased international pressure to repeal the PTA after it was adopted in 1979 to counter the separatist terrorism moved by Tamil armed groups.

In early 2023, Sri Lanka published a draft anti-terrorism bill, which aimed to improve the draconian nature of the PTA and was severely criticised for allowing authorities to arbitrarily detain people and hold them in detention without filing charges.

The HRW statement reminded that in a 2022 speech to the United Nations Human Rights Council, the then Sri Lankan foreign minister pledged a moratorium on its use, but “under President Ranil Wickremesinghe, detentions under the PTA have continued.”

“Such is the chilling effect of the law that in September 2023 the International Monetary Fund found that ‘broad application of counter-terrorism rules’ restricts civil society scrutiny of official corruption,” it added.

HRW urges the government to impose a full moratorium on the PTA and work to repeal it and draft a rights-respecting counterterrorism legislation in consultation with experts and civil society.

While many long-term PTA prisoners were released in recent years, in part due to international pressure by the European Union (EU) and others, at least eight who were first detained between 1996 and 2011 remain in prison, the statement pointed out.

It also mentioned several examples, including how police in the eastern town of Batticaloa arrested nine people under the law for commemorating the war dead in November 2023, and how the authorities detained at least 125 Muslims in the eastern town of Kattankudy under the PTA following the 2019 Easter Sunday attacks, when Islamist suicide bombers targeted churches and hotels, killing over 260 people.

The HRW also recommended that foreign partners including the United States, EU, and UK should insist that Sri Lanka abide by its commitments to repeal the law.

“Previous international pressure has led to modest improvements, and Sri Lanka’s foreign partners should renew their call to repeal the Prevention of Terrorism Act,” Ganguly said.