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The leader of Sri Lanka’s main opposition, also the country’s main Tamil party, has asked the government to immediately release all Tamil political prisoners besides repealing an “obnoxious” anti-terrorism law.
Tamil National Alliance (TNA) leader R Sampanthan accused the Maithripala Sirisena-led government of not acting promptly since coming to power.
“Even the Mahinda Rajapaksa government released over 11,000 persons in custody. They gave them rehabilitation and released them. But this government in the course of the past almost 18 months or more than that has not been acting in this matter as expeditiously as we expected them to,” he said in a speech made in the Parliament here yesterday.
This is the first time he has made such a charge in the Parliament against the Sirisena government, which has been accused of being pro-Tamils by nationalist groups.
Citing that the present government had at the UN Human Rights Council accepted the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) was an “obnoxious law” and needs to be repealed, the TNA leader said that in December 2015, the government released on bail 39 individuals detained without charge but around 250 detainees are believed to be in detention.
The government has made indictments in 117 of these cases and in January, created a special High Court Bench to expedite proceedings.
“The government had promised that the Attorney-Generals Department would make decisions by the end of March, but there have been no further charges or releases this year. This situation is not only traumatic for the individuals concerned.