Sri Lanka imposes new laws to hold terror suspects
Post on: 2011-09-05 By: admin
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Sri Lanka will still detain hundreds of terror suspects and outlaw the defeated rebel Tamil Tiger group despite lifting wartime emergency laws, an official said Thursday.An ethnic Tamil lawmaker condemned the moves as undemocratic and said the anti-terrorism law the government is expanding is too restrictive and should be abolished.The emergency laws that have curbed civil and political liberties for most of the past 30 years lapsed Tuesday after the government did not renew them. President Mahinda Rajapaksa said the laws were no longer needed, more than two years after Sri Lanka's deadly civil war ended and under international pressue to lift the emergency.But Rajapaksa approved four regulations under the powerful Prevention of Terrorism Act that became effective Tuesday on a temporary basis, Attorney General Mohan Peiris said. The government will bring them to lawmakers to make them permanent law.The first two regulations will continue to ban the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam group and the Tamil Rehabilitation Organization, which received donor funds to rehabilitate rebel-controlled areas and was accused of financing the rebels.The other two regulations will allow the government to continue to hold rebel suspects and rehabilitate the rebels who have surrendered, he said.Peiris did not say how long the suspects in custody will be detained. Tamil lawmakers say there are about 900 such detainees.The government is also holding about 3,000 ex-rebels in military-run rehabilitation centers. About 11,000 Tamil rebels surrendered at the end of the war and nearly 8,000 have been freed after rehabilitation, the military says.Suresh Premachandran, an ethnic Tamil lawmaker with the Tamil National Alliance, condemned the government move as undemocratic."On one hand, they abolished the emergency laws to satisfy the international community, while on the other hand, they bring in new regulations to the PTA, which itself is a draconian law. We oppose this move. We have always been calling to abolish the PTA, too.""What's the use of abolishing emergency laws if they include same tough laws in the PTA. This will not help to strengthen democracy at all," he said, adding that they will oppose the new bill in Parliament.The emergency laws had allowed the government to detain suspects without trial, displace residents from their land and set up ubiquitous military checkpoints.The island had been under a state of emergency since 1983 except for brief lapses to help peace talks between the government and rebels.A suspect detained under the emergency laws could be detained for up to one year without appearing in a court.
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no problem sri lanka would be under the TAMILS in the future ,u bloody singalese from orissa.
Sri Lanka is serious about terrorists, Go Sri Lanka.Go.
Screw a terror suspect, their rights are null and void.
Terrorists? I thought the Tamil Tigers were a south Asian baseball team.
The Tamil Tigers are ethic Tamils which are not muslim...I should know I worked with many of then doing the 1990's..
MODEL OF PREVIOS LIBIYA!!!!
The Tamil Tiger group responseable for the violence is muslim
For iridium's information, Sri Lanka is mostly Buddhist. Then Hindu. and then muslim and christian...
Yes they are muslims.Where ever there are muslims there will be violence and bloodshed.
How can people see this odd mutation of the Patriot Act, the paranoid overreactions that lead to Guantanamo Bay and the blatant disregard to the lessons of history as a positive thing for the country. Whether it is a group of thugs in a jungle funded by ex-patriots or a organized government army with a heavily censored media machine, the subjugation of civilians under the gun is terrorism. This will not end well.
Inda needs to learn from this neighbour and their relentless persut for elimination of terrorism. The political leadership is brave enough to make sure the strongest ever message goes to the separatist....fortunately, there are not many human rights activitists like India has....they are at every street ends......they are more worried about the right of terrorists then the people who have lost their loved ones in scores of terrorist acts....what can be more shamefull then this for a nation......
Sri Lanka's war model would be a good example to follow by other countries with insurgency trouble...Philippines for one should get trained and ask for advice of some know-how fighting the extremist rebels...
Bravo for the Sri Lankan Lion for turning the bloodthirsty LTTErrorist
tigers into mewing, whining pussycats.
In the last days in his fast shrinking lair, the terrorist Tamil gang leader Prabarakhan strapped himself in a beltpad of live Tamil civilians to sponge off bullets coming his way and cushion his fall.
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