(Akitha Wijayasinghe)
Parliamentarian M.A. Sumanthiran raised his voice in the Parliament against the unlawful detention of Hejaaz Hizbullah for 8 months without any evidence.
Joining the debate for the Expenditure Head of the Ministry of Justice, the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) MP asked the ruling party to expose to the public if there is any proof against Hizbullah. He asked the government not to detain him unjustly, violating his rights.He pointed out that if a lawyer is treated in this manner, without any proof, nothing better can be expected for other detainees.
“I’m picking this one case to show you how many thousands more are suffering like this. If you are treating a lawyer like this, how can we expect you to treat anybody else any better?” he asked adding that any other minister would have resigned and gone home.
He also went on to mention that a number of human rights were violated in the detention of Hizbullah, and elaborated how badly his rights were condemned when arresting him.
“All kinds of false allegations were made against him. He was accused of involving with Qatar Charity. It is still functioning. The State is beneficiary as well. So, what’s wrong with Qatar Charity? You accuse him of involvement with the Qatar Charity while you are working with it.
“When his house was searched when he was arrested, they took away two of his ‘case briefs.’ Not even in a court of law can question regarding the communication between a client and the attorney and you know that very well. There are two instances of privilege. One is husband-wife and the other is client-lawyer privilege. But they took even his client’s files. Can’t he have clients? He is a lawyer. Even if so, if you found anything in those files, you would have brought it to light and produced him to the court. Still nothing.”
This is why we seek international inquiries and judicial procedures regarding serious & international crimes, as the Judicial System of the country follows a “Death of a Witch” method, MP Sumanthiran added.
On 14th April 2020, Hejaaz Hizbullah was arrested by the Criminal Investigation Division (CID), under the Prevention of Terrorism Act.
