A protest was held in Kilinochchi on Saturday (06) demanding the immediate release of a young Tamil musician who was arrested under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) after uploading a song allegedly containing revolutionary lyrics to social media.
Ganesh Kumar Sankeethan, known among Tamil music fans by the stage name ‘HipHop Sangee’, was arrested by police and produced before a court, which remanded him for two weeks.
Police allege the song he uploaded to social media contained the phrase “Tamil Eelam,” a term associated with the separatist cause.
Saturday’s protest took place outside the former District Secretariat in Kilinochchi and drew Tamil political representatives, artists, civil society organisations, religious leaders, and members of the public.
Placards on display read: “Remove the PTA that strangles democracy!”, “Is singing a terrorist act?”, “Free our national artist!”, “Is singing and writing about the pain of the Tamil people a crime?”, and “Stop state terrorism carried out in the name of the law!”
Ilankai Tamil Arasu Kachchi (ITAK) parliamentarian Sivagnanam Sritharan, speaking to journalists at the protest, condemned the arrest in strong terms.
He said Sankeethan had used his song to share the feelings of his people and that his detention under the PTA went beyond the bounds of humanity and human rights.
He urged President Anura Kumara Dissanayake that if the government genuinely wished to establish reconciliation and peace in the country, it must repeal the PTA as promised and release all those currently held under it.
Sritharan also said that if the government was using weapons and the PTA to suppress the truth of the Tamil people, their dreams of national liberation, and the aspirations of Tamil youth, then all its talk of reconciliation was false.
He called on the President to free Tamil political prisoners suffering in jails, halt further arrests, and release those already detained on humanitarian grounds.
He added that words alone could not deliver liberation to the Tamil people.
Sankeethan’s lawyer, Kesavan, challenged the basis of the arrest before the courts, arguing that the song contained no praise of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, no LTTE symbols, no reference to LTTE leader Prabhakaran, and no mention of any banned organisation.
He asked the court what legal grounds justified the detention.
Southern politicians have also pointed to an apparent contradiction, noting that the ruling party itself used songs glorifying the LTTE during its election campaign.