(FMM/IFEX) – The following is a 19 November 2006 FMM press release: State television director of education sent on compulsory leave from health education programme. Free Media Movement is shocked and appalled by the decision to send Mrs. Anoma Wattaladeniya, Director of Education for the Sri Lanka Rupavahini Corporation (SLRC), on compulsory leave in response […]
(FMM/IFEX) – The following is a 19 November 2006 FMM press release:
State television director of education sent on compulsory leave from health education programme.
Free Media Movement is shocked and appalled by the decision to send Mrs. Anoma Wattaladeniya, Director of Education for the Sri Lanka Rupavahini Corporation (SLRC), on compulsory leave in response to her involvement in the programme “Udavena Wasanthaya”.
Although presently under complete political control of the government, the SLRC is the public service television station of Sri Lanka.
The programme in question was produced with a script written, co-coordinated and guided by the Health Education Section of the Health Ministry and sponsored by the UN Child and Population Fund. It was approved by the Health Education Section and a panel of medical specialists.
The reason the Director General of SLRC, Mr. Sisira Kothalawala, gave for the decision is that showing the anatomy, including the genitals, of a youth, as the programme did, was “indecent” and had been brought to the President’s notice.
This was a programme on adolescence, stressing the health aspects of sexuality, including sexually transmitted diseases.
Only a week before, the government banned an FM radio channel for sexual content.
This decision is a clear violation of the editorial independence of SLRC journalists. In a country where sex education is non-existent in the school curriculum, censoring such programmes is a crime, if not a farce.
Mrs. Wattaladeniya has been an employee of SLRC since its inception and would have been one of the few employees to have completed 25 years of service in February 2007. She has produced a number of critically acclaimed programmes, of which two won international awards and three won national awards for SLRC.
FMM urges the relevant authorities to reverse this decision and to reinstall Mrs. Anoma Wattaladeniya in her post without delay.
