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Sampanthan slams continued detention of Tamil political detainees

TNA leader, and leader of the opposition R Sampanthan on Tuesday slammed the government for its continuing failure to release Tamil political detainees and urged Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and President Maithripala Sirisena to release them immediately.

“How can you justify holding people under the PTA any longer – a law you yourself unequivocally condemned as being draconian in many ways? These people are being held in custody for a long period of time, with some of them being held 10-15 years. If these people had been sentenced, most of them would have come out by now,” he said

Mr Sampanthan pointed out that former LTTE members Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan, Sivanesathurai Chandrakanathan and Kumaran Pathmanathan, well known as KP, were made ministers and guests of the previous government, saying it was "stupid" to claim that the release of the Tamil political prisoners would divide the country.

“Can anything to be more stupid? Can anything to be more absurd? After the conclusion of the war has there been one single act indicative of revival of violence? Why are you hesitant to act,” Mr Sampanthan said.

See the full text of his speech here.

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