TID torture Tamil detainees held under PTA

[TamilNet, Sunday, 19 September 2010, 07:07 GMT]
The Terrorism Investigation Division (TID) of Sri Lanka government continues to torture hundreds of Tamil youths arrested and detained under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) without trial, a journalist who had met the detainees said, under conditions of anonymity. Meanwhile, Sri Lanka government intends to keep the Tamil youths who were combatants of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in detention for five more years, sources close to Sri Lanka prison authorities said.

Tamil youths who had been arrested under PTA in the North and East besides those arrested in Colombo and its suburbs where they had been employed have been detained for more than five years in places like Colombo TID Head Office and Boosa Prison.

TID men who had brought LTTE former combatants held in the camps in Vavuniyaa and Velikantahai to Colombo in the name of interrogation continue to torture them. The TID men further threaten the youths that they may have to spend their lifetime in prison if they refuse to sign statements prepared by TID.

The TID men attack the detainees blindly using iron rods, cricket bat and batons besides squeezing their testicles. Videos of detainees being killed and tortured are shown by the TID men to terrorize the detained youths.

Not only the Tamil detainees but their family members who visit them are also subjected to untold difficulties. Only ten minutes are allowed for such visitors who had travelled a long way to see the detainees.

The visitors are not allowed to give any food that they had brought along but forced to by food from the prison canteen run by a Boosa Prison officer if they want to give the detainees any food.

It is alleged that Abdeen, a Muslim officer of the Division Four of the TID exhorts money from the relatives who come to see the detainees and that another Muslim officer Mohamed torture the Tamil detainees with racial hatred.

Meanwhile, the detainees in Boosa Prison are not allowed medical treatment if they fall ill while the sanitary facilities are very poor. There are only three lavatories for hundreds of prisoners and only a minute given to each to bathe. A request for more water is responded with ruthless attacks.