The leader of Sri Lanka’s main opposition and Tamil National Alliance (TNA) leader R. Sampanthan accused the Maithripala Sirisena-led government of not acting promptly since coming to power and asked the government to immediately release all Tamil political prisoners besides repealing an “obnoxious” anti-terrorism law.

In a speech made in the Parliament here yesterday (25) he stated that even the former government released over 11,000 persons in custody. They gave them rehabilitation and released them. But this government in the course of the past almost 18 months or more than that has not been acting in this matter as expeditiously as we expected them to.

This is the first time he has made such a charge in the Parliament against the present government.

He further stated that even the Sri Lankan Minister of Foreign Affairs described the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) as the much criticized and the much abused Act. Minister has said this in his Statement before the UN Human Rights Council. It has been criticized by everyone, not merely by people in this country, by the international community, and it is a law which has been abused.