When the state of Emergency ended in June, the President issued regulations under the PTA providing that ‘any person who had been remanded ... in terms of any other written law, and has also been connected with or reasonably suspected ... with any unlawful activity within the meaning of the PTA, shall be deemed to have been remanded under the PTA’. In effect all detentions under Emergency laws have now been brought under the PTA and despite the lapse of the Emergency, Tamils arrested for offences under the Emergency regulations, continue to be detained.
Colombo Human Rights agency Home for Human Rights reported that there were over 290 arrests in November throughout the island. The police detained 25 Tamils on 2 November in Anuradhapura. Press reports say that several Tamils were rounded-up in Matale town and its suburbs in a security force cordon and search operation on 11 November. The police Terrorist Investigation Division (TID) arrested 27 Tamils in Waduwa, 17 miles south of Colombo on 16 November.
Ramalingam Uthayanathan was arrested in June 1999 at Udappu in Puttalam District, accused of taking part in LTTE’s military operations and other activities. Four cases were filed against him in courts, based only on a confession extracted while in police custody. The Colombo High Court rejected the confession evidence and released Mr Uthayanathan in November.
Security forces continue to use torture to extract confessions from detainees. In a fundamental rights application, mobile phone dealer, Mylvaganam Ramnath says he was arrested on 2 August in Colombo by the police Criminal Investigation Department (CID). At the time of the arrest, he was not informed of the reasons. He was severely beaten in custody and forced to sign a confession, the contents of which he did not understand. He was held without being produced before a court until 12 September.
In November, Tamils in some parts of Kandy expressed concern over the activities of the Presidential Security Division (PSD) in the run-up to the general elections. The PSD, an agency set up to ensure the security of the President, was involved in collecting particulars of Tamil residents and owners of shops in Kandy. Local people say that all details had already been provided to the Grama Sevakas (Village Headmen) and police stations. The PSD has been accused of nefarious activities under the guise of presidential protection.