‘Withdraw it in its entirety’: Amnesty slams Organised Crime Bill

Daily Mirror reports that Sri Lanka’s proposed organised crime bill is before parliament and that Amnesty International called for it to be withdrawn in its entirety. Newswire identifies the proposal as the Prevention of Organised Crimes Bill and says Amnesty urged the government to withdraw it immediately.

Newswire also says the organisation objected to provisions that could allow confessions made to senior police officers to be used in court.

Newswire says the proposed legislation would permit police searches without warrants and allow access to telephone records, subscriber identities and device-location information without a court order. It also reports that Amnesty raised concerns about restrictions on media coverage of court proceedings.

Newswire reports that Amnesty said courts could consider factors including clothing, tattoos, hand signs, language, associations and places visited when assessing whether someone belongs to an organised criminal group. Amnesty warned, according to Newswire, that this could enable discriminatory profiling and weaken fair-trial rights. The organisation also linked the proposal to risks of abuses previously associated with Sri Lanka’s Prevention of Terrorism Act.