News
Tamil detainees end hunger strike after AG’s assurance
View(s):The hunger strike by Tamil detainees at the Welikada remand prisons ended on Friday after Attorney General Department officials assured them that charges against them would be filed soon and their cases would be expedited.
Officials said that all 14 detainees, who were being held under the Prevention of Terrorism Act, agreed to end their death fast which entered its 20th day yesterday after they were told that a Deputy Solicitor General had given an assurance to the Colombo Magistrate’s Court that charges against all the detainees would be filed soon.
Deputy Solicitor-General A. Navavi told Colombo’s Magistrate that the detainees were alleged to have committed serious crimes such as trying to revamp the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) after it was militarily defeated in May 2009.
Seventeen detainees – two at the Anuradhapura prison and 15 in Colombo — launched the hunger strike on February 22, demanding that they be charged and released on bail or rehabilitated and freed. Three detainees called off their fast following verbal assurances with regard to their cases, but the others continued until they got a binding assurance.
As the health condition of the detainees worsened, Tamil National Alliance leaders and Northern Province Governor Reginald Cooray tried to persuade the detainees to give up their fast, but they refused.
Following the assurance given by the AG’s Department, Additional Magistrate Aruni Artigala remanded the detainees till March 23.
Meanwhile, protests were held in several places in the Northern and Eastern Provinces this week in support of the fasting prisoners.
Jaffna University students on Friday launched a one-day hunger strike, demanding the immediate release of the detainees.
Addressing Parliament during an adjournment motion on enforced disappearances and indefinite detention of prisoners, Opposition Leader R. Sampanthan said the continued detention of the Tamil prisoners under the PTA was indicative of the Government’s lack of commitment to its pledge to the international community that the PTA would be repealed.
“I think the time has come for the Government to act. You must not be scared by scaremongering. What is your position in regard to the PTA? What is the position with regard to the UN Human Rights Council resolution which the government co-sponsored and accepted? How can you hold in custody the persons you have taken into custody under the PTA? How can you convict persons under that law? How can you even detain persons who have been sentenced under that law? How can you hold persons without being charged under that law?” Mr. Sampanthan asked.
Prisons Reforms, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Minister D. M. Swaminathan informed the House that 158 prisoners were being detained under the PTA with 103 prisoners facing charges at high courts while 32 had been found guilty.