Gammanpila To Introduce Indemnity Bill

September 16, 2015

Pivithuru Hela Urumaya leader Udaya Gammanpila said that he will introduce an Indemnity Bill to Parliament as a Private Member's Bill, if the UN Human Rights Council report on Sri Lanka contains serious accusations against the Sri Lankan armed forces.

Gammanpila said that the concept of an Indemnity Bill was introduced by the British and was used three times in the modern Sri Lankan history. The British used it in 1915 following the Sinhala-Muslim clashes and the Sri Lankan government passed an Indemnity Bill in Parliament with respect to the 1971 Insurrection. A similar Bill was passed in Parliament in 1988, during the JVP insurrection in the late 1980s, Gammanpila said.

The Office of the UN High Commissioner’s Investigation on Sri Lanka or OISL report will be released today by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussain. Speaking at the inaugural session of the 30th UNHRC Session, Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussain said that the findings on the OISL "are of the most serious nature".