Proposed counter terrorism act criticized : PM's keeness questionable

COLOMBO (News 1st): The proposed Counter-Terrorism Act, which the ruling party led by the Prime Minister has been striving hard and persistently to obtain parliamentary approval has been met with severe criticism by several persons. Uva provincial councillor of the JVP Samantha Vidyaratne says that if the government headed by Ranil Wickremesinghe is attempting to bring forward repressive acts in the name of terrorism that they will not allow it.  He continued to say that the government cannot make the mere excuse that the laws in place were insufficient to eliminate terrorism when the government themselves foster such things. Meanwhile, the President of the Lawyers collective, Attorney-at-law Manoj Gamage said that although it has been 10 days since the announcement of the ban of both Thawheed Jamath organization and the Jameeyathul Millathei Ibraheem organization that they have not been banned up to date. He continued to say that even if the leader of the ISIS Abubakar arrives at Katunayake that even he cannot be arrested since there are no laws preventing them in the country. Gamage added that before struggling to bring forward the counter-terrorism act these organizations must be banned using the prevailing laws of the country. The lawyer was also questioned on a TV channel owned by Rishard Bathiudeen providing false news to the general public to which he replied that if this particular channel named UTV is creating fake news and misinterpreting operations that the channel could be banned under the emergency regulations and the prevention of terrorism act. He claimed that instead of banning such media channels that the Prime Minister and President try and control media channels such as Hiru, Derana and Sirasa TV.