Developing counter terrorism legislature anywhere in the world is challenging and it is a fine balance to ensure that it meets counter terrorism measures while not giving rise to human rights abuses, Law and Order Minister Sagala Ratnayaka said yesterday.
The Minister was addressing the opening ceremony of the eighth SAARC Ministers of Law and Order (Interior/Home Affairs) meeting at Galle Face Hotel.
In April of this year, Cabinet approved a framework for a new Counter Terrorism Act to replace the existing Prevention of Terrorism Act and despite the challenges, the Minister said the new Act would help deal with the latest challenges of global terrorism.
“It is unlikely that a pluralistic community like Sri Lanka with a history it has gone through will ever agree to a uniform definition of terrorism”, the Minister said but explained that they had sought consultations with a wide variety of members of both the security establishment and human rights lawyers to strike a good balance.
“We have also invited United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and Counter-terrorism Ben Emmerson to visit Sri Lanka from July 10-14 to gather first hand information on the initiatives taken to deal with counter terrorism while promoting and protecting human rights,” he added.
“As the region enveloped by terrorism and drug trafficking looks to work together to curb its spread, Sri Lanka, the minister said had been successful in steering the conversation towards dealing with the spread of narcotics and psychotropic substances within SAARC.
“Within Sri Lanka however, we have been unsuccessful in curbing the menace and we need to tackle the scourge at home. The government’s goal is to reduce the drug menace to minimum
levels by 2020 through a strategy of supply control and demand reduction,”he said.
“All efforts make by all parties to make SAITM a public property will be taken without any interruption and the proposed summit organised by Anti SAITM People’s Barricade will be held in Colombo on July 20 as planned without any change,” he added.