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Fig Leaf

Sri Lanka has set an example of how governments abuse their powers.

By S.G. Jilanee | June 2020

Special powers for the use of force, are to governments, like human blood is to a tiger; once tasted, they refuse to back away, even long after their purpose had been achieved. Interestingly, such powers are invoked in the name of human rights which they ultimately abuse with impunity.

The Sri Lanka government is a case in point. When it enacted the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA), it made commitments to the international community to replace the abusive Act with legislation that respected its international human rights obligations. But according to Human Rights Watch, it has failed to abide by those commitments.

The cabinet of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa announced on January 4, 2020 that it would withdraw a proposed replacement law, reneging on pledges to the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) and the European Union.

Rajapaksa, who took office on November 18, 2019, has also taken other steps that threaten human rights protection in Sri Lanka. He appointed army commanders, implicated by the UN in attacks on civilians and its grave abuses during the civil war to the office of defence secretary and other senior positions.

Meanwhile, HRW’s South Asia director, Meenakshi Ganguli has observed that “President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and senior appointees linked to wartime abuses seem to be dismantling the human rights gains of recent years,” adding, “The EU, which offers Sri Lanka preferential trading terms in return for human rights guarantees, should demand the repeal of the Prevention of Terrorism Act.”

The PTA, introduced in 1978 as a temporary measure, has resulted in countless steps. In 2017, the UN special Rapporteur on human rights and counterterrorism found that the law “has fostered the endemic and systematic use of torture. Entire communities have been stigmatized and targeted for harassment and arbitrary arrest and detention.”

In 2015, then President Maithripala Sirisena joined a unanimous resolution at the UN Human Right Council that committed Sri Lanka to a series of measures to uphold human rights that included replacing the PTA with counterterrorism legislation that respects international legal standards. Many of these undertakings were never met, but in early 2019 the government and UNHRC renewed the commitment.


In 2018, an alternative counterterrorism law, the Counter-Terrorism Act, was submitted to parliament, but it was never passed. Now, the new Rajapaksa government has declared its intention to keep the PTA in force. The PTA is back in the statute book, empowering the police and armed forces to face any threat posed to national security from any quarter.

In 2010, the EU withdrew Sri Lanka’s Generalised Scheme of Preferences Plus (GSP+), its preferential trading arrangement, due to “significant shortcomings” in the country’s implementation of three UN human rights conventions. The arrangement gave Sri Lanka largely tariff-free access in exchange for undertakings to ratify and put into effect international human rights conventions. During the Sirisena government, the EU had restored the preferential trading arrangement.

The scheme monitored and ensured that human rights obligations were effectively met. At the annual meeting of the EU and Sri Lanka in February 2019, the joint communique stated that “the EU reiterated the need to repeal and replace the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) in order to bring counterterrorism legislation in line with international standards.”

Gotabaya Rajapaksa was defence secretary from 2005 to 2015, under the administration of his brother Mahinda Rajapaksa, who was appointed prime minister in November. The UN, Human Rights Watch, and other human rights groups, and the media, found that under Mahinda Rajapaksa’s administration, the Sri Lankan army shelled civilians and hospitals, and raped and executed prisoners during the final months of the civil war against the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The UN found repeatedly in its reports that some military abuses during the conflict amounted to war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The previous Rajapaksa government was also implicated in numerous human rights violations, including arbitrary arrests, torture, enforced disappearances, and extrajudicial killings. In a number of cases, including the 2008 abduction of Keith Noyahr, the 2009 murder of Lasantha Wickrematunge, and the 2010 enforced disappearance of Prageeth Eknaligoda, evidence was produced in court. There has been no final verdict in any of the cases.

The Human Rights Watch recognizes Sri Lanka’s international legal obligation to protect everyone on its territory. But, any counterterrorism measures should reflect international best practices and uphold the basic principles of the rule of law. Nonetheless, according to Ganguly, “For decades, Sri Lanka’s Prevention of Terrorism Act provided a legal fig leaf for grotesque human rights abuses and the suppression of peaceful dissent. The new Rajapaksa government’s embrace of this abusive law is just one of many signs that the rights of the Sri Lankans remain at grave risk.”

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