A court in Sri Lanka on Monday (February 7th) ordered the release of a lawyer and political opponent who had been detained without trial for nearly two years after being accused of involvement in the 2019 Easter jihadist attacks, without evidence according to security organizations. defense of human rights.
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Hejaaz Hizbullah, who made a name for himself as an advocate for Sri Lanka's minority Muslim community, was arrested in April 2020 for his alleged involvement in the church and hotel bombings that killed 279 people.
Prosecutors failed to provide evidence of his involvement and later charged him with inciting "
racial hatred
" under Sri Lanka's draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA).
Hejaaz Hizbullah a prisoner of conscience?
The court found on appeal that certain draconian aspects of the law had been misused to keep Mr. Hizbullah in detention and pointed out that Parliament had begun a process of reforming this law. The decision on Monday (February 7th) to release the lawyer on bail comes just weeks before a scheduled review of his case at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, diplomats said.
Amnesty International, which considered Me Hizbullah a prisoner of conscience, welcomed the news of his release. "
He was in prolonged detention ... without a shred of credible evidence
," the London-based human rights organization said. Dozens of organizations had campaigned against his arrest in April 2020, which had also been denounced by the European Parliament. Eran Wickramaratne, of the Sri Lankan opposition party SJB, has called for the outright repeal of the “
very authoritarian
” law which served to imprison him. "
We need to make sure there are no more prisoners of conscience like Hejaaz
," he tweeted.
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While welcoming the "
good news
" of Me Hizbullah's release, Bhavani Fonseka, a local human rights activist, insisted on Twitter that this "
should not overshadow the need to repeal the PTA
".
Mr. Hizbullah has drawn the hatred of the country's ruling family after successfully defeating his efforts to bring former President Mahinda Rajapaksa back to power during the 2018 constitutional crisis. But the following year, Mahinda was appointed Prime Minister by his younger brother Gotabaya who had just won the presidential elections.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, called for "
renewed attention
on the cases of intimidation of journalists, lawyers and activists in Sri Lanka after the return to power of the Rajapaksa clan.
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