Trincomalee District TNA MP Shanakiyan Rasamanickam has tabled a motion in Parliament calling for the immediate and complete repeal of the Prevention of Terrorism Act, arguing the law has enabled arbitrary detention, torture and the targeting of minority communities for more than four decades.
The motion, now published in the Addendum to the Order Book of Parliament, asks the government to repeal the Prevention of Terrorism Act, No. 48 of 1979 in its entirety and refrain from introducing any replacement legislation containing comparable provisions, The Island reported on Sunday.
Rasamanickam contended that the PTA had been used for over 40 years to facilitate prolonged arbitrary detention and to obtain false confessions through torture, and that the statute had disproportionately affected minority communities and civil society groups. There was no justification for retaining a permanent counter-terrorism law granting sweeping powers to the authorities, the motion argues.
Existing legal provisions were sufficient to address security threats, the TNA legislator said. Terrorism-related offences could already be prosecuted under the Penal Code, and the government retained the power to declare a state of emergency when circumstances warranted extraordinary measures — making a permanent anti-terrorism framework unnecessary.
The motion arrives in the middle of one of the most contested PTA cycles in years. Police arrested a 24-year-old Kilinochchi singer under Section 3(G) over alleged LTTE-glorifying songs at a Chavakachcheri concert this week, drawing a backlash from across the political spectrum — including from SLPP MP Namal Rajapaksa, who accused the NPP of selective enforcement, and Sarvajana Balaya MP Dilith Jayaweera, who said the government’s use of detention orders was the worst abuse of the PTA in Sri Lanka’s history. Earlier, a Jaffna man was held under the PTA over LTTE-themed TikTok videos, and retired Major General Suresh Sallay remains in PTA custody over the Easter Sunday case.
The Prevention of Terrorism Act, enacted in 1979, has long drawn criticism from human rights organisations, civil society groups and international bodies over provisions allowing detention without trial and the absence of independent safeguards. A separate civil-society appeal for the release of Tamil political prisoners detained under the PTA is also active. Rasamanickam’s motion is the first formal legislative proposal of the current parliamentary term to call for outright abolition rather than amendment.
Source: The Island.
