Colombo seeks to contain political prisoners' struggle through adding ‘complications’

[TamilNet, Saturday, 12 December 2015, 23:32 GMT]
When Tamil political prisoners and prisoners of war waging their struggle demand release through existing SL mechanisms such as the presidential pardon and rehabilitation, they do not mean the SL ‘military rehabilitation’ or to get subjected further to the complicated procedures under the so-called Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA), the political prisoners planning their next phase of the struggle told TamilNet on Saturday. Although the Tamil prisoners have waged two phases of hunger strikes to bring attention to their plight, the Colombo regime has only complicated the matter citing the PTA. The outside world should take note of the conduct of the Colombo regime, the prisoners who are expected to announce their next phase of the struggle after December 15, said.

There are 18 - 20 so-called ‘convicted’ prisoners, serving jail sentences. They should all be included in the presidential pardon and be allowed to re-unite with their families, the political prisoners said.

The SL Government should be convinced to take a simple route in enabling the Tamil political prisoners to unite with their families rather than complicating the matter further, the Tamil prisoners said.

“Only 39 detains out of 217 have been released on bail. The SL authorities said they were prepared to release a section of the remaining prisoners through ‘rehabilitation’. But, they selected a group of Tamil prisoners having more than one cases filed against them in different courts [to complicate the matter]. The SL Attorney Department was later telling that there were ‘legal complexities’ in sending these prisoners for rehabilitation. They are still in the prison. Now Colombo is talking about a Special Appeal Court to further complicate the matter. We are highly critical of these approaches,” a prisoner told TamilNet.

The voice of the Tamil prisoner, who was talking to TamilNet over the phone, is being published after his voice has been digitally changed to protect his identity.



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