Thirty years ago, the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) was enacted in the Sri Lankan parliament. It was meant to be merely a "temporary" provision, to stamp out the encroaching terrorist menace.
Yet the PTA is still very much in force. Being convicted under the PTA carries a stigma with it, as clear as if a single, damning word were branded on the forehead: "Traitor."
Many people held under the PTA protest that their cases are not heard immediately. This is because the PTA allows for prisoners under suspicion to be detained for long periods of time before they have any hope of being heard in court.
Section 9(1) of the PTA allows a minister to hold a suspect in custody "for a period not exceeding three months". However, provision is made for a minister to extend the duration of detention for up to 18 months.
What's more, section 10 states that any detention order given by a minister is final and cannot be questioned by a court of law.
Human rights complaints
In addition, the PTA places much importance on confessions, which has led to complaints by human rights organisations that it encourages police to use any means necessary to elicit a statement.
Under the PTA, the burden of proof falls on the defendant, who must prove his innocence.
And the punishment, upon conviction, is severe. The PTA also prevails over any other conflicting law in the country.
Perhaps this made sense during a time of war.
However, thousands of civilians have been detained in prisons all over the country under the PTA and have yet to hear a single charge against them.
The People's Movement for Freedom and Democracy (PMFD) is a relatively new organisation. One of its main aims is to ensure the release of political prisoners held under the PTA, Dr. Wickremabahu Karunaratne said.
Karunaratne is the president of the Left Front, a coalition of Sri Lankan left-wing groups.
The PMFD is in the process of compiling a report on prisoners held under the PTA. It also held a November 12 protest demanding the release of political prisoners, and the abolition of the PTA and other emergency regulations.
The PMFD said there are about 10,000 prisoners held under the PTA in various prisons. Of these, 2000 are held in Kalutara and 3000 in the Boosa Detention Centre.
An estimated 800 are in detention in Welikada Prison.
Karunaratne said he had recently visited Welikada Prison and could confirm at least 58 people were long-standing cases, held for more than five years on suspicion of terrorism. Another 311 were more recent cases.
Karunaratne said that while some of these prisoners had been charged officially, many had been held without any charge for long periods.
Once pressure was applied from the PMFD and other external agencies, charges were hastily framed against the prisoners.
Mahendran Pulidaran is one such prisoner, Karunaratne said. On July 15, 2008, Pulidaran reportedly shot another prisoner while in Batticaloa prison.
In the news, Pulidaran was described as a Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam cadre. The LTTE waged a nearly three-decades long armed struggle for an independent Tamil state until its military defeat in May.
Most readers did not stop to question what Pulidaran was doing in prison. The words "LTTE cadre" was more than sufficient to quell doubts.
Fourteen years without charge
Yet Pulidaran was a mere boy of 14 when he was arrested under suspicion of terrorism.
Pulidaran was held for far longer than 18 months. He is now 29. He was detained for 14 long years before any charges were brought against him.
Karunaratne said the PMFD had attempted to intervene in Pulidaran's case, demanding to know why he was being held for such a long period with no official charge against him.
Conveniently, he was soon charged with a July 2008 shooting of another prisoner.
And he is not the only one to suffer such a fate, Karunaratne said.
This begs the question: if this was the only charge brought against Pulidaran, what was he doing in prison in the first place?
Why was he held for a period far longer than the 18 months stipulated in the PTA, only to be charged with a crime that would not have been possible if he not in prison?
Those charged under the PTA are not exclusively of Tamil ethnicity. An estimated 28 Sinhalese people are being held in Colombo Remand Prison, Karunaratne said.
Their crime? Providing information to or otherwise aiding the LTTE.
One of them is the secretary of the Christian Council, Shantha Fernando. He was en route to a seminar in Europe and was found with some material downloaded from pro-LTTE website, Tamilnet.com.
He was promptly arrested and held on the fourth floor of Police Headquarters for an inordinate period of time.
Coincidentally, Fernando was on a committee investigating disappearances and abductions of government critisis — and was a PMFD member.
Karunaratne said he appealed to the police, saying the Tamilnet.com material had been provided by the PMFD.
"Anyone can download and print that material off the internet", he said.
However police refused to release Fernando. He has been held without charge since April.
Prisoner death
On September 23, a 33-year-old prisoner held under the PTA was admitted into hospital to treat an ailment. He died while in hospital.
The prisoner was a suspect in the 2008 Piliyandala bus bombing. His family demanded a post-mortem be held.
The magistrate said there was some evidence that his death was not due to natural causes, and the case remains open.
Karunaratne noted that the man was in remand at the time. He added that police were reluctant to release any information on the dead prisoner.
The prisoner's wife, based in Jaffna, was not permitted to come to Colombo to claim the body. The PMFD intervened and were able to organise a funeral in Colombo.
Legal systems are often fallible. It is not uncommon for people to slip through the cracks. Yet why is it that the police, indeed the judiciary, ignore the provisions laid down by the PTA?
The PTA itself could, after all, be said to be a controversial piece of legislation. It overrides many of the legal rights afforded to a prisoner. Indeed, until the early 1980s, even the right to a lawyer was refused to prisoners detained under the PTA.
Yet, as the case of Pulidaran illustrates, even what rights exist under the PTA are often ignored. What is frightening is that perhaps there are many more Pulidarans, and indeed Fernandos.
Will the cries of organisations such as the PMFD be heeded? Or will these people be left to languish in prisons scattered across the island?
But the most important question is this: Is it perhaps time to repeal the PTA, a law that in a new era of peace looks increasingly draconian?
[Reprinted from www.nssp.info.]