By Annisa Essack
24:08:2022

Three Sri Lankan student activists were detained on Monday under draconian anti-terrorism law four days after being arrested at a protest in Colombo.

Rights advocates have slammed the move, accusing the government of construing dissent as terrorism, despite Sri Lanka’s controversial Prevention of Terrorism Act under sharp scrutiny again.

Radio Islam International spoke to engineer and activist Nuzly Hameem. He explained that on August 18, the police arrested nearly 20 protesters at a march held in Colombo, organised by the Inter-University Students’ Federation, where participants highlighted many issues, including “state repression” and the spiralling cost of living.

Most of those arrested were granted bail, but Federation convener Wasantha Mudalige, student activists Hashan Jeewantha and Galwewa Siridhamma — who leads the universities’ monk federation — were in police custody for over 72 hours amid reports of their detention under the PTA.

Hameem said that Mudalige was a prominent voice during the ‘Janatha Aragalaya’ [people’s struggle] that spanned four months and dramatically dislodged former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa in July. The IUSF and other student groups played a crucial role in sustaining the peaceful anti-government agitations demanding “Gota go home” and seeking “system change”, often braving water cannons and tear gas unleashed by the police.

The recent arrests have sparked accusations of a witch hunt targeting dissidents from government critics and rights advocates. It also brought the PTA law under the spotlight.

Hameem explained the PTA was enacted in 1979 under President J.R. Jayawardene primarily to crush Tamil youth’s armed struggle against state discrimination and became permanent law in 1982. Modelled mainly on South Africa’s Apartheid-era legislation and British laws against Irish militancy, the PTA was also used against rebellious Sinhala youth during the second JVP uprising in the late 1980s, more recently, against Muslims following the Easter Sunday terror attacks of 2019.

In a letter to the Inspector General of Police on Monday, the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka said it was “deeply concerned about the resurrection of the PTA by the police on suspects who do not fall within the definition of the Act.

The PTA allows for the detention of suspects for up to a year without charge, which violates international law.

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