Zeid claims he only said UN can’t seek 'general amnesty' for PTA detainees

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCHR), Prince Zeid, has denied that he told the media in Jaffna that he will not ask the Sri Lankan government to release Tamil detainees.  

Zeid explained to the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) here on Tuesday, that he had only said that the UN cannot ask a “general amnesty” for the detainees. But it can ask for a credible, fair and speedy judicial process to render justice to them.

The UNHCHR said that the media had misunderstood him and erroneously quoted him as saying that the UN cannot intervene on the issue of the release of Tamil  detainees in Sri Lanka, because any such intervention here will impact on the UN’s stance world-wide.

The media had asked Zeid what he proposes to do to get a “general amnesty” for the detainees, and he had said that the UN could not seek a general amnesty because of its international ramifications.

The Tamils have been seeking a general amnesty because Lanka had given amnesty to Tamil detainees after the India-Lanka Accord of 1987, and to Sinhalese detainees after the 1971 and 1988-89 insurrections.

TNA Against General Amnesty

TNA spokesman M.A.Sumanthiran told Express that the party is satisfied with Zeid’s explanation because the TNA itself is not asking the Lankan government to declare a general amnesty for the detainees because of its impact on the forthcoming war crimes trials.

“If we ask for a general amnesty for the Tamil prisoners, there will be demands for the extension of that facility to the members of the Lankan armed forces who had committed war crimes,” he explained.

“What the TNA is asking for is the repeal of the draconian Prevention of Terrorism  Act (PTA) under which a person can be detained indefinitely only on the basis of a confession. And confessions are extracted by torture.”

“Through the joint sponsorship of the UNHRC resolution of October 1, 2015, the Lankan government is committed to repealing the PTA and replacing it with a new anti-terror law in line in international best practices. If that is done, the prisoners detained under PTA can be released,” Sumanthiran said.

When the TNA leaders asked if Zeid was satisfied with the implementation of the UNHRC resolution by the Lankan government, he said that as compared to countries in a similar situation, “the positives are more than the negatives” in Lanka, though  the pace of progress is “slow and needs to be speeded up.” (The New Indian Express)