(FMM/IFEX) – The following is an FMM press release: The Free Media Movement (FMM) condemns as a serious threat to media freedom two recent developments within the Lake House Group and the behaviour of its new management, which was appointed after the group was taken over by Sri Lanka’s president. The concerns relate firstly to […]
(FMM/IFEX) – The following is an FMM press release:
The Free Media Movement (FMM) condemns as a serious threat to media freedom two recent developments within the Lake House Group and the behaviour of its new management, which was appointed after the group was taken over by Sri Lanka’s president.
The concerns relate firstly to the absence of action against a journalist who used intimidation tactics against the chief editor of the Sunday Observer, and secondly to the interdiction of a reporter on the basis of an article produced over a year and a half ago.
A Lake House journalist with strong political connections, who has in the past assaulted and severely abused the editor of the Sunday Observer, Mr. Lakshman Gunasekera, has not been subjected to disciplinary action, as the case would require. He was instead appointed to the position of Sunday Observer associate editor on 8 January 2004. The journalist in question leads a trade union affiliated with the Sri Lanka Freedom Party, of which the president is party leader and with which the new management of Lake House is closely associated.
Meanwhile, Mr. Asif Hussein, a staff reporter at the Sunday Observer, was previously interdicted over an article prepared by him for publication a year and a half ago. He was later reinstated. He has now been interdicted again, however, based on the same article, without the presentation of a formal charge sheet detailing his alleged misconduct.
The FMM is alarmed by these developments, which have seriously affected Sunday Observer journalists in the free pursuit of their activities and duties. The FMM therefore calls upon the president, as minister of mass communications responsible for Lake House, to take immediate steps to remedy this unacceptable situation and restore a working environment at Lake House that enables its journalists to pursue their profession freely and with self-respect.
Sunanda Deshapriya
Spokesperson
Free Media Movement
