The lead story of this newspaper said, “The Appeal Court yesterday (Monday), ordered the release on bail of lawyer Hejaaz Hizbullah, who had been detained for nearly two years under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA).”
He has been in custody since April 2020 under the PTA over ‘Bloody Easter Sunday’ that took place on 21 April 2019, an attack executed by Islamist terrorists.
However, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa speaking in Parliament last month said there was no threat to national security. The very reason for the birth of the PTA, 43 years ago was due to a threat to national security facing the country at that time. But if there is no threat now to national security, then there is also no need for this draconian piece of legislation to still be in the country’s statute books.
Some of the PTA’s pernicious features are, “where a statement made by a suspect, orally or in writing, in the course of an investigation, or not, it may be proved against such person.
“Every person who commits an offence under this Act shall be triable without a preliminary inquiry, on an indictment before a High Court Judge sitting alone without a jury or before the High Court-at-Bar by three Judges without a jury, as may be decided by the Chief Justice.
“Where any person is in remand under this Act, the Defence Ministry Secretary may direct that such person be kept in the custody of any authority, in such place and subject to such conditions as may be determined by him.”
The PTA was passed by the J.R. Jayewardene Government in 1979 for the singular purpose of crushing LTTE terrorism, which, in its wake was leaving behind a trail of destruction replete with cold blooded murders of law enforcement officers and political opponents, armed robberies of State and cooperative Banks and the destruction of public property and making good their escape, before, subsequently killing innocent civilians as well.
Two such examples that took place on the eve of passing the PTA, were the killing of four CID officers in the Vavuniya jungles on 7 April 1978 investigating LTTE terrorism and the destruction of the Avro civilian aircraft run by State-owned Air Ceylon, predecessor of the current national carrier SriLankan, five months later on 7 September 1978.
To investigate the root cause that led to the genesis of the PTA, that dates back to 1975, the year when the SLFP Mayor for Jaffna, Alfred Duraiappah was gunned down by LTTE terrorists, who later made a successful getaway. The Government in power at that time was the SLFP-led UF Government.
Meanwhile, the 1977 Parliamentary Poll was epoch making for more reasons than one. For the first time a minority party became the major opposition party in Parliament. That was the Jaffna Tamil based TULF which swept the Polls in the North and East of the country under the separatist or secessionist ticket. The TULF and the LTTE terrorists who were at large then had at least one thing in common. Both were campaigning for separatism, one democratically and the other through violence. Post-1977, such acts of violence exacerbated.
And with Police investigations on LTTE terrorism virtually drawing a blank, an exasperated Jayewardene, who had a record five-sixths majority in Parliament, got the draconian PTA passed in 1979.
But the PTA did very little to stamp out LTTE terrorism. It was ultimately defeated in a conventional war on 18 May 2009. Nonetheless, even after the subjugation of LTTE terrorism nearly 13 years ago, this pernicious piece of legislation still continues to be in the country’s statute books.
Draconian, because it can be abused, not least by vested political interests, for the two-fold purpose of making the minorities in particular to toe the line and the other, to be used as a communal red herring to gain the majority Sinhala vote by crying ‘wolf, wolf’.
But if there is no threat to national security as stated by no lesser person than the President himself last month, it’s now ‘more than about time’ that the PTA is repealed.