Category: News

Following multiple direct and public requests made by the Essential Food Commodities Importers’ and Traders’ Association (EFCITA) from the Government, President Gotabaya Ra,japaksa has instructed relevant officials to take immediate steps to release containers containing essential items held up at Sri Lanka Customs, the President’s Media Division (PMD) announced yesterday.

President Rajapaksa issued these instructions with the aim of preventing any shortages in the market, at a special discussion held at the Presidential Secretariat yesterday with regard to the essential goods that are presently in the custody of the Customs, the press release said.

The release added that President Rajapaksa also appointed a committee headed by Finance Minister Basil Rajapaksa to ensure that there is no shortage of essential commodities, including food, during the upcoming festive season. It also said that President Rajapaksa stressed the importance of providing the people with the opportunity to purchase essential items including food without any shortage and instructed the officials to make plans for this immediately.

In view of the upcoming festive season, the importers of essential food commodities had urgently requested the Government to release a certain amount of dollars every month so as to prevent a shortage of essential commodities.

However, when contacted by The Morning yesterday prior to the PMD release, Trade Ministry Secretary Bhadranie Jayawardhana said that the Trade Ministry could not intervene in releasing $ 175-200 million, as requested by the EFCITA. Claiming that it is the importers’ duty to make the relevant imports, she said that the Trade Ministry would only intervene in fair issues.

“All the importers don’t have this issue. Some importers make the imports using their own US dollars (USD). They open the letters of credit through commercial banks. When the imports are being made in that way, no issue arises. Also, we cannot intervene in releasing the amount of USD that they have requested. Especially, when the rice imports were allowed, the importers agreed to import rice by spending their own USD. That is their duty,” she added.

Jayawardhana further said that if the importers are facing an issue on acceptable grounds, then the relevant importer should reach the Trade Ministry through the EFCITA. She added that when such a request is received, the Trade Ministry would write to the Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL), after which the relevant arrangements would be made to release the USD.

She explained: “There are no control prices now. Therefore, the importers can import goods and sell them in the open market. That is their business. If they have US dollars, they can spend them. However, if there is any issue on acceptable grounds, the Trade Ministry will intervene. The particular importer should reach us through their association and then we will write to the CBSL.”

At yesterday’s meeting, President Rajapaksa had stressed the need to allow the importation of selected essential commodities and not to allow over-importing and stockpiling of goods with malicious intent, and had instructed to prepare a new mechanism to expedite the release of essential commodities, including food, to the market, and directed the new committee to regulate and oversee the matter.

Finance Minister Basil Rajapaksa, Trade Minister Dr. Bandula Gunawardana, Minister of Ports and Shipping Rohitha Abeygunawardena, Central Bank of Sri Lanka Governor Ajith Nivard Cabraal, State Minister of Co-operative Services, Marketing Development, and Consumer Protection Lasantha Alagiyawanna, Secretary to the President Gamini Senarath, Secretary to the Ministry of Finance S.R. Attygalle, and senior officials of the Ministry of Finance and Sri Lanka Customs were also present at the meeting with the President.

The EU also said that civil society’s critical engagement on PTA reforms and human rights issues should be welcomed rather than met with hostility.

“Welcomes the recent releases on bail of those detained under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA). Civil society’s Critical engagement on PTA reforms and human rights issues should be welcomed rather than met with hostility,” the EU office in Colombo tweeted.

Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch claimed in a report that the Sri Lankan Government is using the discredited Prevention of Terrorism Act  to commit prolonged arbitrary detention and torture.

HRW said that the European Union, other trading partners, and donors, should press for time-bound action to repeal the abusive law and reject the government’s vague pledges of reform.

The 59-page report, ‘“In a Legal Black Hole’: Sri Lanka’s Failure to Reform the Prevention of Terrorism Act,” documents the Gotabaya Rajapaksa administration’s misuse of the PTA against the minority Tamil and Muslim communities, and to suppress civil society groups. The administration rejected pledges by the previous government to repeal the law after it was readmitted to the EU’s Generalized Scheme of Preferences plus (GSP+), which grants Sri Lanka special tariff-free access to EU markets.

“Sri Lankan authorities continue to use the Prevention of Terrorism Act to sweep away targeted people’s basic rights, reneging on past government promises to repeal the law,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “EU members and other countries should reject the Rajapaksa administration’s unconvincing promises to reform the PTA and press for the law’s prompt repeal.”

This report is based on Human Rights Watch research on the Prevention of Terrorism Act carried out since 2018, interviews conducted between January and December 2021, and a review of newly available court documents. Human Rights Watch wrote to the attorney general of Sri Lanka and to the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka, and received a response from the commission which is included in the report.

The PTA allows the authorities to arrest people without warrants for unspecified “unlawful activities,” and to detain suspects for up to 18 months without producing them before a court. This denies suspects’ basic due process rights and removes safeguards that would help protect them from abuse, effectively creating a legal black hole, Human Rights Watch said.

Between 1983 and 2009, during the civil war between the government and the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the authorities used the law primarily against suspected members or supporters of the LTTE or other armed groups. Since the deadly 2019 Easter Sunday bombings by a little-known Islamist militant group that targeted churches and hotels, the authorities have used the law to arbitrarily detain hundreds of Muslims. In the past three years the authorities have arrested over 600 people under the PTA, according to Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka data.

Many suspects have been held for years awaiting trial. Statistics indicate that most are tortured in custody, and convictions frequently rely on confessions obtained under torture.

The Court of Appeal yesterday granted bail to human rights lawyer Hejaaz Hizbullah, who has been held under the Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act No. 48 of 1979 (PTA) for around 22 months, but he is yet to be released as a motion will have to be filed at the Puttalam High Court (HC) for the release.

The petition filed at the Court of Appeal was heard before Justices Menaka Wijesundera and Neil Iddawala yesterday, where they directed the relevant court (the Puttalam HC) to grant bail to Hizbullah.

Although Foreign Minister Prof G.L. Peiris told diplomats last month that the Attorney General has no objection to granting bail to Hizbullah, the Puttalam HC last month said that it does not have the necessary jurisdiction to grant bail under the PTA.

Issuing the order yesterday, the Court of Appeal noted that while it is the responsibility of the legislature/Parliament to amend the draconian elements of laws combating terrorism, it is up to the Judiciary to interpret those elements in the interests of justice.

“Four decades have passed and the PTA has strayed far from its historical context. The PTA, if in its application and implementation, creates a vicious cycle of abuse, the very purpose of the statute is defeated. The preamble of the Act refers to the affirmation that ‘men and institutions remain free only when freedom is founded upon the respect for the rule of law and that grievances should be redressed by a constitutional method’. However, it is alleged that the PTA has been utilised at times to the detriment of personal liberty by its draconian implementation. Ultimately, it is up to the legislature to ensure that the draconian elements of the law combating terrorism are dispensed with modern-day contexts. Until such time, it is the Judiciary’s duty to employ existing legal provisions and constitutional powers to interpret the same elements in the interests of justice,” said the Court of Appeal yesterday.

Thus, the conditions of bail are a cash bail of Rs. 100,000, two surety bails of Rs. 500,000 each (Rs. 1 million in total), that Hizbullah report to the Puttalam Police Division twice a month, that his passport be submitted to the Puttalam HC, that his permanent residential address be submitted to the Puttalam HC, and that he not interfere with the witnesses under any circumstances.

Hizbullah, who was arrested in April 2020, was charged almost a year later, under Section 2(1)(h) of the PTA (by words either spoken or intended to be read or by signs or by visible representations or otherwise causes or intends to cause the commission of acts of violence or religious, racial, or communal disharmony or feelings of ill-will or hostility between different communities or racial or religious groups) and Section 3(1) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) Act (incitement to discrimination, hostility, or violence). He was first arrested over alleged links to the Easter Sunday terror attacks, although evidence of terror-related activity was never produced.

Commenting on the decision yesterday, Amnesty International South Asia, who named Hizbullah a “prisoner of conscience” last year, said that while granting him bail is a relief, “he should not have spent a day behind bars in the first place without committing any offence”.

“He was in prolonged detention under the draconian PTA, without a shred of credible evidence. We call on the authorities to drop all charges against him and to release him unconditionally. The authorities must immediately review the detention of all those held under the PTA, ensure adequate access to fair bail hearings, and immediately release all those not facing internationally recognisable charges,” Amnesty International South Asia Tweeted yesterday.

Opposition and Samagi Jana Balawegeya (SJB) Leader Sajith Premadasa Tweeted: “Hizbullah’s release after 20 months of detainment based on baseless charges is proof that the PTA is not a tool but a weapon.”

Similarly, SJB Parliamentarian Eran Wickramaratne Tweeted that while he welcomes news of bail being granted to Hizbullah, “we must not waver from our call to repeal the much-abused PTA that was used to detain him in the first place. We must ensure that there will be no more prisoners of conscience like Hizbullah”.

The European Parliament, earlier last year, called on the Government of Sri Lanka to repeal the PTA and the European Commission to consider the temporary withdrawal of the Generalised Scheme of Preferences Plus (GSP+) trade concessions from Sri Lanka if it is not done, where they specifically noted the prolonged detention of Hizbullah.

Sri Lanka is seeking a 200 million US dollar credit line from Australia for lentils and other foods a media report said, soon after reports of 200 million dollars being sought from Pakistan amid forex shortages.

Sri Lanka’s The Sunday Times newspaper quoted Trade Minister Bandula Gunewardene as saying that 200 million dollar credit line sought from Australia as well a billion US dollar credit line from India in the works could be used to bring goods for the upcoming New Year season.

“The two credit lines will be sufficient for the imports of essentials for about six months,” the newspaper quoted Minister Gunewardene as saying.

Sri Lanka’s Foreign Minister G L Pieiris expected to visit India shortly and there are expectations of progress over the billion dollar credit.

India had already given a 500 million dollar credit line for fuel and a 400 million dollar swap to the central bank. India had also deferred a payment under the Asian Clearing Union from the central bank.

Sri Lanka is facing severe forex shortages amid liquidity injected to maintain excessive low rates.

Two years of money printing has sent inflation soaring to 14.2 percent a year by January 2022. Money in recent months has been printed to sterilize interventions for imports and maintain policy rates at 6.5 percent.

There a complaints that 1,500 containers are stuck at the port awaiting foreign currency. In December imports are estimated to have soared to 2.2 billion US dollars.

A number of civil society organisations and individuals have come out in support of human rights lawyer and advocate, Ambika Satkunanathan after the Foreign Ministry criticised her over comments she had made to the EU Parliament’s Sub-Committee on Human Rights.

In a joint statement, 161 individuals and 47 organisations/networks/trade unionists said they consider the targeting of outspoken members of civil society by a Government institution using dangerous insinuations to be a form of intimidation aimed at stifling dissent and freedom of expression.

“Statements such as this by the Foreign Ministry, we believe, aim to constrain civil society engagement as an independent interlocutor with the international community on democracy and rights issues, standing up for the rights and protection of affected communities and individuals,” the joint statement said.

In her submission to the EU, Ms. Satkunanathan made a critical assessment of the human rights situation in Sri Lanka and its international and national obligations to its citizens, and provided recommendations to European Union member states.

“Rather than engage substantively with the issues raised, the Sri Lankan Government instead chose to cast aspersions on an individual with an unimpeachable record of principled research, advocacy and public service for the improvement of human rights in Sri Lanka. The attempt by the Foreign Ministry to draw an analogy between the independent advocacy of a Tamil activist and researcher with the claims of the LTTE is both unwarranted, mischievous and chilling,” the joint statement said.

Issuing a statement earlier, the Foreign Ministry noted with concern what it claimed were numerous misleading statements contained in the testimony of Ambika Satkunanathan, during an exchange of views on the situation of human and labour rights in Sri Lanka at the European Parliament’s Subcommittee on Human Rights on January 27, 2022.

“We note with deep concern the continuing incidents of harassment of victim-survivors, human rights activists, media workers and civil society organisations by state actors. Creating an enabling environment for civil society will require more than mere assertions that civil society is treated as a partner, and the shifting of the NGO Secretariat to a new Ministry,” civil society organisations and individuals said.