Sri Lanka It's Happening

May 23, 2004

A couple of days ago there was a new item about a six year old being abused by a policeman. A couple of weeks ago there was an article about a remand prisoner being found hanging in his cell. The Sri Lankan justice system being what it is the latter incident would be passed off as suicide and the former incident will just make it's way into a file but no further action will be taken.

You hear of at least one incident of a person dying in police custody at least each a month. You never hear of any action being taken against the policemen involved. Usually the cops band together to say the victim died of a heart attack or fell and injured his head.

In this backdrop the police wants the Prevention of Terrorims Act (PTA) to be reintroduced. This act was in place during the late eighties when the government was fighting the LTTE in the north and east and the JVP in other parts of the country. The PTA is basically designed to take away some of the rights of the detainees.

Now you might think all this is justified if the police were genuinely interested in bringing criminals to justice. If the number of people who make statements to the press saying the police refused to record their complaints is anything to go by, apprehending criminals is the last thing on their minds.

Posted by raditha at May 23, 2004 3:49 AM