Columns

During  the three decade old armed conflict  in the country, the civil war was used as the proverbial beggar’s wound to cover up shortcomings of governments. In more recent times, after the conclusion of the armed conflict, politicians have begun using the spectre of threats to National Security  to cover their acts of omission and commission.

National Security in one sense  refers to the security of the State. However it will have no meaning unless it encompasses the various security dimensions of the citizenry like individual and collective security, economic security and social security.

Prevention of terrorism undoubtedly ranks high in the effort to safeguard National Security.  It is probably in such a context that Sri Lanka’s Prevention of Terrorism Act was conceived by the authorities in 1979 as a temporary measure to counter the growing terrorist threat at that time.

Yet today nearly  13 years after the armed conflict ended and despite the absence of any imminent threat of terrorism, the PTA remains on the statute books.

It is a damning indictment on the country that attempts are now being made to enact amendments (albeit minor ones that do not address the objectionable features  of the PTA) only because of the need to obtain GSP+ concessions as well as due to international pressure.

The PTA in its present form only creates insecurity among the people because it removes many  Constitutional safeguards of its citizens.

Administrative detention, lack of judicial oversight during detention and investigations, the admissibility of confessions made to Police officers are only a few of the objectionable features of this draconian law.

Besides being bad law  the PTA has been badly administered leading to grave abuse.  Particularly officers in  the lower rungs of the administration of justice have not received adequate training on how  the provisions of the PTA should be implemented  bearing in mind the  Constitutional guarantees enjoyed by the citizen.

As a result Police officers often use the PTA as the law of first resort. They hardly pay heed to the requirement of “reasonable suspicion” when arrests are made. The hard pressed Police officers often make the arrests under the PTA on the flimsiest suspicion and seem to follow the “arrest now, investigate later “ principle. Some of the more recent abuses seem to reflect this practice.

While this is very visible in some of the high profile cases in the public domain, there are many instances of the marginalised and vulnerable sections of society who have fallen victims to the abuse of the PTA.

Several such instances have been highlighted  in a widely circulated article by  Shreen Saroor, the well known human rights activist. She says:

“Nearly three years have passed since the deadly 2019 Easter bombings. While failing to prosecute the actual perpetrators, the state has single handedly used the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) as a cudgel to persecute the entire Muslim minority. As was experienced by Tamils during the civil war, women are uniquely victimised by the state’s overreach – either collateral damage of PTA arrests or themselves targeted because of family ties with detained men

Shreen Saroor points out that the vast majority of recent PTA detainees are Muslim men from Batticaloa and Mawanella, arrested for dubious links to the suicide bombers or to the banned National ThowheethJamath (NTJ) group.

Giving examples she states that  in Kattankudy one three-wheel driver was arrested for delivering food once for Zahran’s class, another man for having booked bus seats for the bombers, and still another for fixing a TV antenna in one of the suicide bomber’s neighbourhoods. “A man who bought a motorcycle belonging to Zahran’s brother has been arrested, as has a person whose van was suspected of being used for unspecified “extremist activities”—when the insurance company tried to seize that detainee’s van due to non-payment of instalments, the brother-in-law who helped the family salvage the van also was arrested. Some have been arrested for unwittingly attending Zahran’s training in Nuwara-Eliya and Hambantota, when they believed they were simply going for a trip.“

In her writing Shreen Saroor highlights the issues faced by women who are victims of the PTA. She points out that most of the women in custody are detained for being related to the Easter bombing suspects or for listening to a sermon of the now-banned NTJ. Hailing from poor, religiously conservative backgrounds, these women barely stepped outside their homes, much less kept abreast of what their male relatives did. One 57-year-old woman is detained because her daughter is married to a suspect who allegedly gave technical support to Easter Sunday bombers. Suffering from breast cancer for the last ten years, she has not received adequate medical care. A 22-year-old was arrested in December 2021 because she was married to a bombing suspect—her one-year-old baby is now growing up without a mother. The same is true for two other mothers, aged 38 and 25, who were arrested under the PTA purely because of their marital ties to the alleged Easter Sunday attack suspect. In both cases, the children are staying with frail and elderly grandmothers, who struggle on a subsistence wage to raise the children.

According to Shreen Saroor like their Muslim sisters, Tamil women continue to be arrested under the PTA based on nothing more than their contacts with male suspects. One middle-aged housewife was detained by the TID after unwittingly paying Rs. 300,000 to an agent with hopes of going to New Zealand, not knowing that the ‘agent’ was wanted in connection with terrorism money laundering. Three years after her arrest, she still remains in remand custody. Due to financial difficulties, her teenage daughter was forced to wed. Another Tamil woman was arrested on suspicion of having contacts with a wanted suspect. She was forced to sign a document without knowing its contents and has been separated for three years from her 10-year-old daughter, who has had to grow up in a children’s home. Another woman was arrested after trying to visit her younger brother in police custody; she remains in remand custody almost for three years now, leaving her feeble mother-in-law to look after her disabled husband and two children.

According to Shreen Saroor over 25 women are currently detained under the PTA. These women all come from poor families and are being held almost entirely due to their relationships or contact with male suspects. Because of their poverty, they lack access to effective legal representation. They all have children or dependents who rely on them for subsistence and support. After years in jail without access to each other, family bonds are shattered, and new traumas are formed. One detainee has reported being tortured to sign a confession while in remand custody. While many of these women languish in detention for almost 3 years, no charges are brought, nor clear reasons given for their arrest says Shreen Saroor.

Terrorism cannot be prevented by law alone it has to have a multi pronged approach rooted in economic, social and other forms of justice. The case of the thirty year old war is a classic instance  where grievances which are not addressed were hijacked and transformed into terrorism.

Its high time the PTA is abolished and the Constitutional rights of the people are strengthened.

(javidyusuf@gmail.com)