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PHU - 'there are no political prisoners in this country'

The Pivithuru Hela Urumaya (PHU) rejected Tamil calls for the release of political prisoners stating that there were no 'political prisoners' in Sri Lanka, describing them instead as 'LTTE members. 

Criticising the TNA's call for the release of Tamil political prisoners, the PHU leader MP Udaya Gammanpila was quoted by the Daily Mirror as saying, "there is no other group in the world which is more duplicitous than the TNA."

"It is with great responsibility we say that there are no ‘political prisoners’ in the country as claimed by them,” he said. 

“About 12,000 LTTE members who surrendered with weapons to the state were rehabilitated and repatriated. The rest of the LTTE members were imprisoned because there are terrorist charges against them,” he added, echoing similar comments made by Sri Lanka's state minister of defence over the weekend. 

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