Category: News

The government’s latest attempt to replace its abusive Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) retains numerous provisions that have enabled serious human rights violations, Human Rights Watch said on Monday (05).

HRW said that the proposed Protection of the State from Terrorism Bill (PSTB), which will be sent to Parliament on October 6, 2026, includes an overbroad definition of terrorism, inadequate judicial oversight, sweeping powers of search and arrest for the armed forces, and executive authority to curtail freedom of speech, assembly, association, and movement.

It noted that these provisions neither meet the benchmarks set out by United Nations human rights experts, nor comply with human rights obligations and commitments that Sri Lanka made to the European Union under the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP+), which links trade benefits to human rights conditions.

“Sri Lankan authorities have long used draconian counterterrorism legislation to persecute minorities and target the victims of rights abuses and activists seeking justice and accountability,” said Elaine Pearson, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The proposed law will allow similar abuses, breaching Sri Lanka’s obligations under international law and jeopardizing its EU trade benefits.”

President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s National People’s Power alliance pledged in its 2024 election manifesto to campaign for the abolition “of all oppressive acts including the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) and ensuring civil rights of people in all parts of the country.”

The bill is the proposed replacement for the PTA, which has enabled arbitrary detention, ill-treatment, and torture.

HRW said the law, first enacted in 1979 as a “temporary” measure, has been used to target Tamil and Muslim communities, the media, human rights defenders, and others critical of successive governments, entrenching impunity in Sri Lanka for 46 years.

In 2017, Sri Lanka committed to repealing the PTA as a condition for the EU to reinstate its GSP+ status.

Since 2018, several attempts to repeal and replace the PTA have failed.

The government introduced an earlier version of the bill in late 2025, but it was withdrawn and has been reintroduced with some changes following criticism by human rights groups, media, and others.

Meanwhile, despite the government’s pledge to abolish the PTA, the Dissanayake government continued to use the law.

In June 2026 it was used to arrest and detain Sangeethan Ganeshkumar, a 24-year-old Tamil hip-hop artist, in connection with a music video.

According to information provided to the UN by the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka, there were 46 PTA-related detention cases in 2025 and 12 in the first 3 months of 2026.

It has at times been used in cases—such as alleged organized crime—that should be addressed using ordinary criminal laws, not counterterrorism authority.

In 2021, UN human rights experts set out five prerequisites to ensure that any proposed counterterrorism law complies with international human rights standards. They include providing a definition of terrorism that complies with international norms to ensure precision and legal certainty, especially when the legislation may affect the rights of freedom of expression, opinion, peaceful assembly, association, and religion or belief; instituting robust measures to prevent and halt arbitrary deprivation of liberty; ensuring measures to prevent torture and enforced disappearance; and enabling overarching due process and fair trial guarantees, including judicial oversight and access to legal counsel.

The bill does not meet these standards, HRW said.

The draft law includes broad and vague definitions of terrorism and could undermine the rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly.

The definition of terrorism problematically includes “unduly compelling a government or an international organization, to do or to abstain from doing any act.”

The bill also includes a sweeping provision that anyone who, with “intention or knowledge…directly or indirectly,” induces any person to commit, attempt, abet, conspire to commit, or prepare to commit, the offense of “terrorism” by “distributing, circulating,” or providing “a service to others that enables them to obtain, read, listen to or look at a terrorist publication” commits an offense.

The risk that this authority could be used to curtail free speech is shown by the repeated use of the PTA to interrogate, arrest, and detain journalists and social media users, the rights body observed.

While the definitions of offenses under the bill are overbroad, HRW said that the bill also includes some improvements.

It provides that those who engage in protest, advocacy or dissent; industrial or labor action; or humanitarian and medical assistance will not be considered to commit an offense.

However, this does not adequately address the dangers contained in other clauses that could result in abuse.

A further serious concern, as with the previous counterterrorism drafts, is that the latest bill provides broad authority to Sri Lanka’s police, armed forces, and coast guard with “reasonable suspicion” to stop, search, question, enter premises, and take suspects into custody without a warrant.

The proposed law enables the inspector general of police or a deputy inspector general of police to obtain an order from the defense secretary to detain a suspect for two months, which can be extended up to a year.

A magistrate cannot overturn a detention order, removing effective judicial oversight. Using different provisions under the bill, a person could be held without charge for up to a total of two years.

The bill provides some safeguards, such as allowing a magistrate to visit approved detention sites without notice, interview detainees, and direct officials to bring detainees before a Judicial Medical Officer if there is suspicion of torture or ill-treatment. The magistrate can also order a change of detention site.

The bill provides for an Independent Review Committee appointed by the defense minister to review the “necessity, legality and proportionality” of a detention order within 30 days and recommend to the minister whether it should be confirmed, varied, or revoked.

While independent reviews of detention orders could reduce abuses, the committee’s appointment by the minister would place the independence of such scrutiny in doubt.

Finally, the proposed law grants sweeping government authority to curtail freedom of movement and association, including for the president to proscribe organizations without judicial oversight.

The defense secretary is empowered to designate anywhere a “prohibited place,” while a deputy inspector general of police can obtain a court order to restrict an individual’s movement and communications for up to three months.

Such broad powers with limited or no judicial oversight would have a chilling effect on free speech, association, assembly, and movement.

The Sri Lankan government should impose an immediate moratorium on the use of the PTA while it comprehensively amends the PTSB or prepares a new bill that meets international standards, HRW said.

“Sri Lanka has a grim history of misusing bad counterterrorism laws to commit serious human rights violations, and this bill would do little to stop that from happening again,” Pearson said. “The Sri Lankan government should fulfill its international legal obligations and commitments to the EU and other international partners by legislating to end these abuses instead of simply repackaging the same abusive powers in new legislation.”

Authorities have taken steps to suspend the use of the Browns Hill property in Matara, which is alleged to belong to former Minister Basil Rajapaksa, under the provisions of Sri Lanka’s Prevention of Money Laundering laws.

The development was revealed after the Financial Crimes Investigation Division of the Criminal Investigation Department informed the Matara Magistrate’s Court through a motion filed before Magistrate Chathura Dissanayake.

The case relates to claims that an approximately one-and-a-half-acre plot of land at Browns Hill in Matara was purchased using money allegedly earned through illicit means.

Meanwhile, authorities are also taking steps to obtain an Interpol Blue Notice against Basil Rajapaksa after he allegedly failed to appear before court in connection with the case.

A Blue Notice is typically sought through the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) to obtain information regarding the location, identity, or activities of a person linked to an ongoing investigation.

The court had previously ordered the confiscation of Basil Rajapaksa’s bail money on August 18 after he failed to appear before court in relation to the case.

Although Sri Lanka’s economy has returned to its 2018 size and regained its upper-middle-income status, two in five people remain poor or vulnerable to falling into poverty, the World Bank said in its latest Development Update.

Under a poverty line of 4.20 US dollars a day, poverty is estimated at 16.9 percent in 2025. While down from a peak of 20.7 percent in 2023, it remains well above the 11.5 percent recorded in 2019. In 2026, two-fifths of Sri Lankans are either poor or living within 50 percent of the poverty line, meaning a single shock could push them under.

The estimates use an updated methodology based on annual Labour Force Survey data, which lowered the previously estimated crisis peak of 27.6 percent, though the broader trend remains unchanged.

Weak jobs and stagnant earnings explain much of the continued hardship. Real wages remain about 12 percent below 2019 levels, while labour force participation stood at 49.4 percent in 2025, down from 52.3 percent in 2019. Female participation, at 32.4 percent, is among the lowest in the region. Recent price hikes, including a 21 percent rise in transport costs, also halted the recovery in real incomes in the first half of 2026.

“The increase in living costs comes before many households have rebuilt the financial buffers depleted during the crisis,” the report said.

The burden is also unevenly distributed across the country. Poverty levels are two to three times higher outside the Western Province, climbing to 36 percent in the estate sector.

The lender also warned of long-term scarring among young children. Data on children under five show the share of underweight children rose from roughly 12 percent in 2021 to about 16 percent in 2025, while child stunting increased from around 7.5 percent to about 10 percent during the same period.

While the World Bank projects poverty will decline to 14 percent by 2028, it will still remain above pre-crisis levels.

“The recovery remains narrow unless growth generates a larger number of productive jobs that are more broadly shared,” the World Bank cautioned.

The Attorney General has concluded that fresh investigations should be conducted into the killings allegedly linked to the Batalanda torture chamber.

The Attorney General’s Department stated that observations containing that conclusion have been forwarded to the Secretary to the President.

The Attorney General’s view is that indictments cannot be filed against suspects solely on the basis of evidence contained in the Batalanda Commission Report.

What is the Batalanda Report?

In 1994, Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga was elected President, ending 17 years of United National Party rule.

A key pledge of her election campaign was to deliver justice for killings and disappearances that occurred during the 1988-1990 period.

After assuming office in 1994, Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga appointed a Presidential Commission of Inquiry through an order issued on September 21, 1995.

That commission became known as the Batalanda Commission of Inquiry.

The Commission was tasked with investigating allegations that young people had been unlawfully detained, tortured, killed, or disappeared in houses located within the Batalanda Housing Scheme in Biyagama, which was owned by the State Fertilizer Manufacturing Corporation, and identifying those responsible.

After receiving 12 extensions, the Commission handed over its report to then-President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga on March 26, 1998.

A number of significant revelations emerged during the Commission proceedings, including statements relating to former President Ranil Wickremesinghe.

House A2/2 within the housing complex had reportedly been used by Ranil Wickremesinghe from 1983 until April 1989 as a holiday bungalow belonging to the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Employment.

From April 1989 to 1994, the same house was reportedly used as the official residence of Ranil Wickremesinghe in his capacity as Minister of Industries.

House A2/1 had reportedly been allocated for the security personnel of Ranil Wickremesinghe, while House A2/3 had been assigned to a ministry operating under his purview.

A man named Vincent Fernando, who served as caretaker of Ranil Wickremesinghe’s bungalow, was residing at the premises and died under mysterious circumstances shortly before Ranil Wickremesinghe was due to give evidence before the Commission.

House A1/7 was also reportedly used by security personnel attached to Ranil Wickremesinghe, while House B2 had allegedly been used by him as an office.

A notable development during the Commission proceedings was the identification of that house by a person who claimed to have been tortured there and later escaped.

House B1 had also reportedly been used by security personnel attached to Ranil Wickremesinghe.

The Batalanda Commission Report states that then Police Inspector Sudath Chandrasekara, who served as a personal security officer to Ranil Wickremesinghe, had used House B7.

House B8 was located nearby and was reportedly used by security personnel attached to Superintendent of Police Douglas Peiris.

A witness named Earl Sugi Perera testified before the Batalanda Commission that he had been detained and tortured at that location.

“Douglas Peiris used to come there, and they would say, ‘Ranil has arrived, the boss has arrived.’ People from Ranil’s escort would come and kick us. Bring all those people from Ranil’s escort and I can identify them. Bring the entire escort, more than thirty of them, and I will point them out. I was detained and beaten for 23 days. So, why won’t I recognize them.”

In recent months, the Batalanda Commission Report has once again become the subject of public discussion amid expectations that it could shed further light on a number of large-scale crimes for which evidence is still believed to exist.

Leader of the House Bimal Rathnayake tabled the report in Parliament on March 14, 2025.

However, the Attorney General’s advice is that the evidence contained in the Commission report alone is insufficient to bring alleged perpetrators before the law.

Nevertheless, the Attorney General has recommended that fresh investigations be carried out into the murder allegations.

Should justice for innocent people who were allegedly subjected to brutal torture and killed, only to have their stories buried by the passage of time, be delayed any longer?

The Court of Appeal today ordered Galagoda Aththe Gnanasara Thero to be imprisoned to serve the remaining period of his six-year prison sentence.

The decision follows the dismissal of his appeal against a prior conviction relating to contempt of court charges. Gnanasara Thero, the general secretary of the Bodu Bala Sena (BBS), was originally sentenced to six years of rigorous imprisonment in August 2018 by the Court of Appeal after being found guilty of four counts of contempt of court. The charges stemmed from his disruptive behaviour inside the Homagama Magistrate’s Court premises in 2016 during a hearing regarding the disappearance of journalist Prageeth Ekneligoda.

Although he was granted a presidential pardon in May 2019 after serving nine months of his sentence, subsequent legal challenges were mounted against the validity and execution of the pardon. Following today’s court ruling, authorities ordered him into custody to resume serving his remaining term.