Sri Lanka terrorism bill would repeal the PTA but retains broad detention, warrantless arrest and proscription powers that critics say remain open to abuse.
COLOMBO – Sri Lanka’s proposed Protection of the State from Terrorism Bill promises to repeal the Prevention of Terrorism Act, but the legislation retains several of the powers that made the PTA one of the country’s most controversial laws, including executive detention, warrantless arrest and broadly framed terrorism offences.
For the National People’s Power Government, the Bill carries particular political significance.
In 2024, the NPP manifesto pledged the “abolition of all oppressive acts including the PTA”. The promise formed part of a broader commitment to break with laws long criticised for enabling arbitrary detention, abuse and political repression.
Two years later, the replacement legislation has reached Parliament.
The Protection of the State from Terrorism Bill was gazetted on September 22, 2026, and presented to Parliament on October 6. One clause explicitly repeals the PTA.
Government leaders have argued that the new framework will target terrorism rather than ordinary political activity. The Minister of Justice has said the legislation is intended to address terrorism alone, while President Anura Kumara Dissanayake has acknowledged that the old definition of terrorism was so broad that it invited abuse.
Sri Lanka has also made international commitments to reform its counter-terrorism framework, including in discussions with the United Nations and European Union and in the context of GSP+ trade concessions.
Those commitments matter.
But the decisive test is not the language used at press conferences. It is the language Parliament is being asked to enact.
Read closely, the Bill retains several features that have historically made anti-terror laws vulnerable to misuse.
What the Bill Actually Says
Amnesty International, United Nations human rights experts and the Centre for Policy Alternatives have each raised concerns over provisions in the Bill.
Their objections broadly converge around four areas:
- A definition that can reach into political activity. The Bill includes acts intended to “unduly compel” a government within its definition of terrorism. Critics argue that such wording could potentially encompass strikes, mass protests or other forms of political pressure if interpreted broadly.
- Arrest without a warrant. Security forces may arrest individuals on reasonable suspicion without first obtaining a warrant.
- Executive detention. The Defence Secretary may issue detention orders lasting up to one year. According to the source material, a magistrate cannot overturn such an order, while detention without charge may extend for as long as two years.
- Proscription and restricted areas. The President may proscribe organisations, while officials may declare places prohibited, with critics questioning whether the degree of judicial oversight is sufficient.
The Bill contains safeguards that should also be acknowledged.
It excludes protest, advocacy, dissent, labour action and humanitarian activity from the definition of terrorism in specified circumstances.
Magistrates are also permitted to visit places of detention.
Those provisions represent improvements over some features of the PTA.
The concern is that they may not resolve the fundamental question of control over detention.
If the executive can continue to determine whether a person remains incarcerated for an extended period without meaningful judicial power to overturn that decision, the central imbalance between State power and individual liberty remains.
A judicial visit to a detention facility is a safeguard. It is not the same as judicial control over the legality and continuation of detention.
A Temporary Law That Lasted 47 Years
Sri Lanka’s experience with the Prevention of Terrorism Act explains why those distinctions matter.
The PTA was introduced in July 1979 by the government of President J. R. Jayewardene as violence intensified in the North.
Its title itself described the legislation as temporary.
The Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act was intended to remain in force for three years.
It did not.
Certified as urgent, the legislation was subjected to an accelerated constitutional review process and passed by Parliament in a single day.
Its powers were extensive.
A minister could authorise detention for up to 18 months. Confessions made to police officers became admissible as evidence. Failure to provide information concerning a suspected terrorist could itself become an offence, even though the law did not provide a clear definition of who constituted a terrorist.
In 1982, the PTA was made permanent, again through urgent legislation.
Forty-seven years later, it remains part of Sri Lanka’s legal architecture.
That history is relevant to the present debate because temporary emergency powers have repeatedly demonstrated a capacity to outlive the crises used to justify them.
Powers Expanded Beyond Their Original Purpose
The PTA’s application also expanded beyond the northern militant violence that prompted its introduction.
The source material records that among the earliest detainees were two Sinhalese opposition activists rather than northern militants.
In July 1983, Tamil prisoners held under the PTA were killed inside Welikada Prison while in State custody.
Following the anti-Tamil violence of that period, the Government accused the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna, the Communist Party and the Nava Sama Samaja Party of involvement in the violence, an accusation subsequently discredited.
Those parties were banned and political figures detained.
Whatever the security rationale behind the PTA’s creation, its history shows how extraordinary legal powers can migrate from one perceived threat to another.
That is why the safeguards written into any replacement legislation require scrutiny not only according to how the current Government says it intends to use them, but according to how a future administration might use them.
Forty-Seven Years of Detention and Acquittals
No Sri Lankan government has published a complete accounting of how many people have been detained under the PTA or how many were ultimately released without charge.
Available figures nevertheless indicate the scale of its use.
By 1990, around 6,700 suspected JVP members were reportedly being held under emergency and anti-terrorism powers.
In 2018, the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka found that more than half of PTA suspects whose cases remained unresolved had spent between five and 15 years in detention.
More than 600 people were arrested under the PTA between 2019 and 2022.
Data released in 2024 also showed substantial acquittal rates among cases pursued under the law.
Statistics alone do not capture the personal consequences of prolonged detention.
Vasanthi Raghupathy Sharma, a mother of three, spent more than 15 years in detention before being acquitted in 2015.
Chandrabose Selvachandran spent approximately 14 years in custody before his acquittal in 2019. He died 18 months later.
Nadesu Kuganathan, a rehabilitated former combatant, was re-arrested and reportedly detained for around eight years without being charged.
These examples illustrate why the distinction between investigation and punishment matters.
Detention becomes particularly difficult to justify when it lasts for years without a criminal conviction.
Journalists, Poets, Lawyers and Protesters
The PTA has also been used in cases involving speech, writing and political activity.
Journalist J. S. Tissainayagam received a 20-year prison sentence in a prosecution linked to his writing.
Poet Ahnaf Jazeem spent 19 months in custody in connection with a book of Tamil poetry.
Lawyer Hejaaz Hizbullah was detained for nearly two years, while the Court of Appeal later criticised what it described as the misuse of the Act’s draconian elements against him.
Student leader Wasantha Mudalige was detained under the PTA in 2022 following anti-government protests.
In March 2026, the Supreme Court ruled that his arrest had no legal basis.
These examples do not mean every PTA investigation was illegitimate or that Sri Lanka does not face genuine security threats.
They demonstrate why counter-terror powers require stronger safeguards than ordinary criminal legislation, not weaker ones.
Where the State is given exceptional authority to detain people for prolonged periods, the threshold for judicial supervision should rise accordingly.
Confessions and the Risk of Abuse
One of the PTA’s most controversial provisions has been the admissibility of confessions made to police.
Human rights advocates have long argued that such a system creates incentives for coercion and increases the risk of torture or fabricated confessions.
Sri Lanka’s record of allegations concerning custodial abuse gives that concern particular weight.
If the purpose of reform is to prevent repetition of the PTA’s abuses, the evidentiary framework surrounding confessions cannot be treated as a technical detail.
Ordinary criminal law generally requires the prosecution to establish its case through independently tested evidence.
Counter-terrorism legislation should not become a route around those fundamental protections.
The wider question is not whether security agencies require effective investigative tools. They do.
It is whether those tools are compatible with due process, judicial independence and protection against coercion.
Old Habits Under a New Government
The NPP came to power promising a different approach.
Its record since assuming office has nevertheless drawn scrutiny.
The Human Rights Commission recorded 46 PTA detentions in 2025 and a further 12 during the first quarter of 2026.
In March 2025, Mohamed Rusdi, a 22-year-old shop worker, was detained under an order signed by the President in his capacity as Minister of Defence after he pasted stickers at a Colombo shopping mall criticising a foreign state.
Police later acknowledged that the conduct did not constitute a PTA offence.
Rusdi was nevertheless placed under a restriction order following his release.
The Human Rights Commission found his arrest unlawful and arbitrary.
In June 2026, Tamil hip-hop artist Sangeethan Ganeshkumar, 24, was detained in connection with a music video.
Government ministers have said the PTA is now used primarily against organised crime and drug gangs.
That position must be considered alongside the Supreme Court’s March 2026 finding that the PTA cannot lawfully be used to prosecute ordinary crimes.
Nothing in these examples proves that the present Government intends to reproduce the gravest abuses associated with earlier administrations.
That is not the relevant standard.
A counter-terrorism law should be judged by the powers it creates, not by assurances that today’s office-holders will exercise them responsibly.
Laws Outlive Governments
Few political movements know that lesson better than the JVP.
In 1983, the party was banned following accusations linking it to the anti-Tamil violence of that period.
In the years that followed, thousands of JVP members were detained, while many others were killed or disappeared during the wider conflict and counter-insurgency.
For decades, JVP parliamentarians were among the PTA’s strongest critics.
President Anura Kumara Dissanayake emerged from that political tradition.
There is therefore a historical irony in the present debate.
The Government that now possesses the authority to shape Sri Lanka’s next anti-terrorism framework is rooted in a movement that experienced State repression first-hand.
That history should strengthen, rather than weaken, the case for limiting executive power.
The relevant question for every Member of Parliament is simple: would these powers still appear acceptable if exercised by a future government controlled by political opponents?
If the answer is no, the powers require reconsideration.
Previous Replacement Bills Faced the Same Criticism
Sri Lanka has attempted to replace the PTA before.
The 2018 Counter-Terrorism Bill faced strong criticism over provisions that opponents described as extending rather than dismantling the PTA model.
The 2023 Anti-Terrorism Bills prompted similar objections and did not become law.
The present Government’s own December 2025 draft was subsequently withdrawn.
The current Bill is therefore not being considered in a vacuum.
Each failed attempt has reflected the same unresolved policy tension: how to give the State sufficient power to confront terrorism without granting the executive powers broad enough to be used against political dissent, journalism, protest or ordinary criminal activity.
Repealing the PTA is only meaningful if the replacement law changes the architecture that made the PTA vulnerable to abuse.
Changing the title while preserving executive detention and broadly framed offences would not answer the principal criticism of the existing system.
What Parliament Should Change
Sri Lanka does require effective legislation against terrorism.
The choice is not between national security and civil liberties.
A democratic State should be able to protect both.
Before passing the Bill, Parliament should consider seven measures:
- Impose an immediate moratorium on the use of the PTA.
- Conduct transparent consultations with PTA victims, affected communities, the Bar, civil society organisations and the Human Rights Commission before tabling amendments.
- Define terrorism narrowly and consistently with internationally accepted principles, including the UN model definition.
- Place every detention under meaningful judicial control and require detainees to be brought promptly before a magistrate.
- Make confessions to police inadmissible and prosecute ordinary criminal offences through ordinary criminal law.
- Repeal the PTA as soon as an amended replacement law that meets constitutional and human rights safeguards is enacted.
- Address past harm by reviewing outstanding PTA cases, releasing people held without charge or trial where lawful grounds for detention no longer exist, and considering apology and reparation for established wrongful detention.
These proposals do not require Parliament to weaken Sri Lanka’s ability to respond to genuine terrorist threats.
They require the State to prove that exceptional powers are necessary, proportionate and subject to independent judicial control.
Parliament Must Decide What Repeal Really Means
The Protection of the State from Terrorism Bill gives the NPP Government an opportunity to fulfil one of its clearest civil-liberties promises.
Repealing the PTA would carry enormous symbolic importance after 47 years.
But repeal cannot be judged solely by whether the words “Prevention of Terrorism Act” disappear from the statute book.
The substance of the replacement matters more than its name.
If executive detention, broad offences and weak judicial remedies survive the transition, Sri Lanka may end one law without ending the system that made it controversial.
Parliament should therefore resist treating repeal as an administrative exercise.
Every clause granting extraordinary State power should be examined against the history of how similar powers were used under the PTA.
The Government has an opportunity to demonstrate that national security and individual liberty are not competing political slogans but responsibilities that must be protected together.
Members on both sides of Parliament should examine the Bill on that basis before voting.
The central question is not whether Sri Lanka needs a law against terrorism.
It is whether, after 47 years of experience with the PTA, the country is prepared to ensure that the replacement cannot become another law whose exceptional powers gradually become ordinary.
SOURCE:- SRI LANKA GUARDIAN
