Human Rights Watch Condemns Sri Lanka’s PTA As “Legal Black Hole”

Human Rights Watch Condemns Sri Lanka’s PTA As “Legal Black Hole”
Photo: SoFie/Flickr, 2012.

08-02-2022 

Judit Kolbe 

Sri Lanka and Human Rights Researcher 

Global Human Rights Defence 

On February 07, 2022, Human Rights Watch (HRW) published a new Report titled “‘In a Legal Black Hole’ Sri Lanka’s Failure to Reform the Prevention of Terrorism Act” (HRW, 2022). The 59-page report documents how the current government under President Gotabaya Rajapaksa uses the Prenvention of Terrorism Act (PTA) as a tool to detain members of the minority Muslim and Tamil communities and suppress Sri Lankan civil society groups (Tamil Guardian, 2022). HRW criticised the administrations’ failure to adhere to pledges to repeal the law made by the previous government, after its readmittance to the European Union’s (EU) Generalised Scheme of Preferences plus (GSP+)[1] (HRW, 2022). Thus, HRW called on international trading partners of Sri Lanka, including the EU, to pressure the government to comply with international human rights obligations and repeal the PTA (Tamil Guardian, 2022). 

Furthermore, HRW urged the international community and trading partners not to accept the PTA’s proposed changes, as, according to HRW, they would not be effective in ending the “widespread abuses” under it and still fall short of international human rights standards (HRW, 2022; Tamil Guardian, 2022). Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director at Human Rights Watch, explained that the current proposal to amend the PTA was “misleading” and would not address the government’s “abusive actions”; thus, “the EU, United States, and United Kingdom should hold the Sri Lankan government to its international obligations and push for meaningful action to protect human rights” (HRW, 2022; Tamil Guardian, 2022).

Notes: 

[1] The EU’s Generalised Scheme of Preferences plus (GSP+)is a trade benefit scheme that grants Sri Lanka tariff-free access to the EU’s markets, as long as Sri Lanka is in compliance with human rights standards. In 2010 Sri Lanka was removed from the scheme as a result of the government’s failure to comply with human rights standards, however, it was readmitted in 2017 due to its pledge to repeal the PTA (HRW, 2022). 

Sources and further reading:

Human Rights Watch (HRW) (2022, February 07). Sri Lanka: Grave Abuses Under Discredited Law. HRW. https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/02/07/sri-lanka-grave-abuses-under-discredited-law 

Tamil Guardian (2022, February 07). ‘In a Legal Black Hole’ - Human RIghts Watch slams Sri Lanka’s PTA. Tamil Guardian. https://www.tamilguardian.com/content/legal-black-hole-human-rights-watch-slams-sri-lanka-s-pta