Prevention of Terrorism Act: Swasthika Attorney at Law question Govt.’s failure to revoke PTA

“Activist and Attorney-at-Law Swasthika Arulingam noted that when the previous administration had drafted anti-terror legislation, members of the NPP themselves had adopted the position that there was no need for an anti-terror law.

“Dr. Harini Amarasuriya, Bimal Rathnayake, and Lakmali Hemachandra have been vocally against anti-terror laws. Now that they are in Government and have come to power, the first thing they did was use this PTA to arrest suspects involved in the so-called security threat.

“That’s the problem with anti-terror laws – we don’t know what the threat is, we are supposed to believe there is one, and be fine with any kind of arrests that happen under it. That’s the rationale of using the PTA.”

Accordingly, Arulingam said that if the Government was now saying there was a need for an anti-terror law, it must then justify its reasons. “Were they lying to the people when they were in the Opposition? They have a duty to explain to us what in our society warrants a broad and sweeping anti-terror law like the PTA.”

“What is the loophole in the law which warrants an anti-terror law? No government has ever explained this. If the PTA were to leave the statute book tomorrow, what is the security threat that they won’t be able to counter without the PTA?” questioned Arulingam.

She highlighted that other laws, including the Penal Code and the Public Security Ordinance, existed to deal with emergency situations, but previous governments and the present one had created a false sense of fear in the minds of the people.

“The PTA is supposed to prevent terrorism, but it was used to arrest whoever the Government wanted to arrest.” Highlighting that any kind of anti-terror law extended emergency conditions indefinitely, she said that such architecture eroded democracy.

“You can’t have democracy with the State constantly threatening to frame people as terrorists. The issue with this Government is that it knows all this, as its members were the ones making all these arguments,” she said.”

 

Pamodi Waravita reporting for The Morning