Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa has asked whether the death of a young man in Homagama police custody is “one step on this country’s journey towards a police state”, and tied the case to two security bills now before Parliament.
Hiru News carried his statement at 4.56 p.m. Colombo time on Wednesday.
The custody death
Premadasa said the man, whom Hiru names as Ishara Harshana, lost his life while in the custody of the Homagama police after being arrested, and that when relatives went to the station on 25 October to ask after him they observed the manner in which he had suffered injuries from ill-treatment.
He said the police are obliged to safeguard the life, protection and health of a person from the moment that person is taken into custody, and that the loss of Ishara Harshana’s life while in custody is a grave tragedy. Premadasa attributed that duty to a provision of the Constitution.
This desk reports the duty by its substance rather than by citation. Hiru’s filing attaches it to a specific article number, and this operation has previously recorded Hiru garbling a constitutional citation in a court report. The obligation Premadasa describes — protection of a person in police custody — is reproduced here as he stated it; the article number is not.
He called for a transparent and independent investigation, saying that the failure to protect the man’s life amounts to the loss of the protection and security the Constitution confers, and is a violation of the supreme law.
The two bills
The larger part of the statement is about legislation. Premadasa said the government is attempting, through two further statutes, to curtail and erode the human and fundamental rights of civilians — naming the Organised Crimes Bill and the bill on suppressing attacks on the state by terrorism.
He said various provisions within those two bills pose serious threats to the administration of justice and to the rule of law, and that through them the freedoms of speech and of peaceful assembly, political freedom, democratic rights and human rights could be lost, carrying the country towards single-party rule.
Taken together with the Ishara Harshana case, he argued, passage of the two bills would narrow fundamental human rights within concepts of autocracy, arbitrary state rule, single-party rule and dictatorship. Two things must happen in parallel, he said: justice and fairness for Ishara, and the defeat of what he characterised as the government’s effort to carry the country towards a police state.
Premadasa said every government is bound to safeguard democracy and that the present government too must strengthen and promote it, adding that no government holds a mandate to restrict democracy.
On national security he did not argue against legislation as such. Laws to secure national security should be drafted in conformity with international standards, he said, and optimal legal measures to root out organised gangs should be implemented in line with international conventions. His objection is that the bills as drafted would instead entrench autocratic rule. He said he was ready to give the highest level of leadership to defeating that effort through the strength of the people.
Context
The bills Premadasa names are both live. This desk reported on Wednesday that the Joint Opposition has raised media-freedom objections to the anti-terrorism bill. The Organised Crimes Bill has drawn separate criticism, including from Amnesty International over its detention provisions — executive detention in two-month blocks for up to a year under one clause, with up to a further year on remand before indictment under another.
The custody death itself escalated sharply on Wednesday. The Human Rights Commission summoned Homagama officers to appear on Thursday, and the Homagama Magistrate later ordered suspects arrested and produced before court on a motion from the family and civil society groups.
A note on the name
Hiru renders the dead man’s name as Ishara Harshana. This desk’s earlier reporting, and a search of other outlets’ coverage, give it as Ishara Harsha Kumara — in full, Francis Durage Ishara Harsha Kumara of Kirivattuduwa. The archive’s spelling is retained elsewhere on this site; Hiru’s form is reproduced above only where his statement is being quoted.
Not reported
The filing does not say where or in what format Premadasa made the statement, whether it was a press conference, a written release or a parliamentary intervention. It does not record any government response, nor whether the Opposition intends to vote against the two bills or to propose amendments.
It does not specify which provisions of either bill he considers objectionable, or which international standards and conventions he says they fall short of. No stage is given for either bill’s passage through Parliament.
Single source. Neither the Daily Mirror’s breaking-news listing nor NewsFirst’s rail carried this statement at the time of writing, and Ada Derana has been returning an HTTP 403 block to this desk for some 48 consecutive days.