EMERGENCY LAWS NO MORE--PRESIDENT

President’s exclusive statement
Emergency laws withdrawn after 30 years

Today in Parliament, President Mahinda Rajapaksa made a special statement by proposing to withdraw the emergency laws with existed for 30 years.
After ending the ethnic war extending the emergency law from time to time was a debatable question as the country could have had an administration devoid of emergency law regulations.
What is Emergency Law?
Under the emergency law one could arrest someone without a Magistrate’s order, prohibit having public meetings, processions, to curb people’s Ddemocratic rights which all came under the powers of service personnel. Also under the Emergency laws media has no freedom to express views and could seal any media institution and also could arrest any media reporter.
After the completion of the war thousands of displaced persons are still at welfare and rehabilitation centres under the Emergency regulations. Workers could not express their grievances through the respective unions, strikes were barred, working to rule prohibited, prevention of various types of businesses were all under the Emergency regulations.
Was it expedited because of a request from India?
During talks the Indian Foreign Minister S.M.Krishna had with our Foreign Minister G.L Pieris between the 15-17th may 2011 the topic of withdrawal of Emergency laws were discussed. It was mainly to expedite and facilitate to resolve the issues the Tamil population were faced with.
This matter to a great extent drew the attention of the Sri Lankan Government, particularly of the displaced persons in North and East and to take appropriate prompt steps in this regard was also requested during these talks.
Influence of Tamil Diaspora:
Having the Emergency regulations, the Tamils in Sri Lanka had been confronted with a definite injustice as they were unable to express views. The anti government Tamils in foreign countries have produced and shown the Channel 4 video Worldwide in protest, may have been a cause to influence this decision.
President’s Speech:
It was disclosed that under the normal law it was now possible to have the administrative activities, hence the proposal to withdraw the Emergency laws had arose. Prior to the year 2005 even the news were prohibited to be published without censorship, but under his Government this was not implemented.
 From the year 2006 June to 2009 May in order to eradicate terrorism the Emergency laws were implemented as it was useful then. Since then when day to day life was becoming normal there was absolutely no necessity to extend the Emergency laws. It became necessary to facilitate the activities that confronted the Tamil people, to help in the exercise in the rehabilitation process of the Tamil people in rehabilitation camps, to make them re settle and resolve matters of such nature.
After winning the war to date not a single incident of terrorist violence had been reported, besides the recent uproar about the ‘Greace Yaka’. Several Emergency regulations were removed little by little until this decision was taken.
Opposition hails decision:
Today’s decision of the President to remove the Emergency laws was hailed, by the opposition leader Ranil Wickremasinghe. The General Secretary of the JVP, Tilvin Siva was of the same view and so was with all the other Leaders of all opposition parties in the Parliament.