New face for PTA

THE Prime Minister has recently announced that the notorious Prevention of Terrorism Act enacted in 1979 by J.R. Jayewardene and made permanent in 1982 will be replaced with new protocols inspired by British legislation. While the move to remove the PTA seven years into peace is overdue, citizens of Sri Lanka must be wary of our politicians emulating British anti-terror laws which come with their own set of caveats and opposition within the UK.

Seven years after the end of the war, with a new Government in place and continuing scrutiny on the effectiveness of the State’s post-war reconciliation process, it is high time the divisive PTA be reformed or repealed. Just last year Sri Lanka’s PTA made international news when Balendran Jeyakumary, a mother of a missing son and campaigner for the disappeared, was taken into custody without charge and held for nearly a year. More recently, there has been a spate of arrests in the north and the east through the PTA.

Swathes of progressive Sri Lankan citizens, activists, civil society and NGOs have rallied for a reform or outright removal of the act with support from the international community. While the Government has previously talked about introducing three new laws to replace the PTA, the Prime Minister’s remarks on following the British model on the issue are disconcerting, to say the least.

Britain’s anti-terror legislation have been no less controversial than Sri Lanka’s and have come under heavy scrutiny from lawyers, politicians and human rights activists. In fact much of the criticism of British anti-terror laws echo those of the Sri Lankan PTA. Detractors have called out Britain’s successive anti-terror legislation for enabling censorship, curbing legitimate forms of protest and being outright racist against fellow British citizens of various ethnic and religious backgrounds.

In fact an argument could be made that Sri Lanka’s PTA is already modelled on the British legislation as the PTA was enacted around the time UK parliament passed a series of Acts to combat sectarian violence in Northern Ireland. To Sri Lankans the key elements of these early British Acts will sound familiar. They include proscriptions of certain organisations and criminalisation of membership in such organisations, arrest without warrant, detention without charge and severe penalties for associating with or harbouring terror suspects.

A move to replace the PTA rather than remove it entirely during a time of peace and stability should be met with intense scrutiny from the public especially when the Prime Minister names British style anti-terror laws as a point of inspiration. If the PTA is to be removed or at the very least reformed, the last thing we Sri Lankans need is a redux of the same oppressive legislation dressed up in British regalia. 

Hopefully the Government will be more forthcoming in the months to come as to what aspects of British anti-terror laws they wish to emulate. Doing so is vital to enabling a free and open discussion to take place within Sri Lankan society at large on the merits of emergency security measures which have historically been grossly abused by the State.