Emergency extended for another month in Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 08 December 2009, 11:39 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s parliament Tuesday evening adopted a motion moved by the Prime Minister Ratnasri Wickremanayake seeking the approval to extend the State of Emergency for another month by a majority of seventy four votes. Ninety five parliamentarians from the ruling party United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) and its allies voted for the motion. Twenty one parliamentarians of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) and the main opposition United National Party (UNP), present in the House voted against.

Parliamentarians of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) were not present at that time of voting, parliamentary sources said.

Meanwhile, the next sitting of the Sri Lankan parliament was postponed to January 5 on a motion moved by the government amid protest by the opposition.

The motion was put to vote. Eighty nine members of the government group voted in favour of the motion and fifty four opposition parliamentarians voted against.

The State of Emergency is being extended with the approval of the parliament every month since August 12, 2005.