A new bill before Sri Lanka’s parliament that grants the authorities sweeping arbitrary powers to tackle ‘organized crime’ and deny suspects’ human rights should be immediately withdrawn, Amnesty International said today.

The Prevention of Organised Crimes bill, tabled in Sri Lanka’s parliament on 6 October, contains provisions that would make confessions extracted under duress admissible in court, enable the detention of suspects for up to two years without trial, and ban the media from reporting on court proceedings. The bill also confers the police with wide powers to conduct searches without a warrant, and imprison people for not providing information to authorities.

The bill mirrors many elements of Sri Lanka’s repressive Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA), which has been misused since the 1970s to target minorities and repress dissent.

“This extraordinary bill is the most alarming in a string of repressive laws proposed by the National People’s Power (NPP) government.…