SL parliament debates emergency extension motion

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 07 February 2007, 10:11 GMT]
Sri Lanka's parliament began Wednesday morning debating the motion of extending the State of Emergency for another month. Ratnasiri Wickremanayake, the Sri Lankan Prime Minister tabled a motion for extending the State of Emergency for eighteenth time, said soldiers of the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) were being killed and 181 were injured in the month of January in the war front.

101 civilians were also killed and about 200 were injured during that period, according to the Sri Lankan Prime Minister.

He moved that the State of Emergency should be extended for another month to "curb the security threat."

K.D.Lal Kantha, a Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) parliamentarian said the emergency should extended "until terrorism is wiped out" in the country.

"Those who oppose the state of emergency have been clamoring that human rights of citizens are violated under the guise of implementing emergency laws," the JVP parliamentarian added.

Joseph Michael Perera, United National Party (UNP) parliamentarian said his party has decided to support the extension of State of Emergency parliament taking into consideration of the "security of the country."

The debate continues.

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