A police anti-riot unit in Colombo, Sri Lanka, January 30, 2024.
(New York) – The Sri Lankan government’s Prevention of Organised Crimes Bill, submitted to parliament on October 20, 2026, risks enabling arbitrary detention, torture, and other rights violations, Human Rights Watch said today. The proposed law, alongside the Protection of the State from Terrorism Bill submitted on October 6, reproduces abusive provisions in existing counterterrorism laws that would allow continuing abuses that the government had pledged to end.
President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s National People’s Power alliance pledged in its 2024 election manifesto to abolish all “oppressive” laws and ensure “civil rights of people in all parts of the country.” In particular, the Dissanayake government—like its predecessors—pledged to repeal the notorious Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA). Both bills presented in October replicate some of the worst aspects of the PTA, shifting abusive provisions to create parallel legal structures outside existing criminal law and without basic safeguards.
“Sri Lanka’s organized crime bill would enable prolonged detention without adequate judicial oversight or evidence of criminal conduct, and could encourage torture by allowing convictions based on confessions obtained by the police,” said Elaine Pearson, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “If this law is adopted in its current form, it risks unleashing serious rights violations just as previous similarly draconian legislation has done.”
The purported objectives of the Prevention of Organised Crimes Bill are to combat organized crime and support international law enforcement cooperation. It is presented as giving effect to the 2003 United Nations Convention against Transnational Organised Crime, yet fails to adhere to international standards of precision and legal certainty and removes basic due proc
