(CPJ/IFEX) – CPJ is deeply dismayed by President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga’s administration’s recent expansion of censorship regulations on media coverage of the civil war between the government of Sri Lanka and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The latest restrictions follow news reports that as many as 1,000 government troops may have been killed […]
(CPJ/IFEX) – CPJ is deeply dismayed by President Chandrika Bandaranaike
Kumaratunga’s administration’s recent expansion of censorship regulations on
media coverage of the civil war between the government of Sri Lanka and the
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The latest restrictions follow news
reports that as many as 1,000 government troops may have been killed by LTTE
forces last week.
On 6 November 1999, the information department issued an immediate ban
prohibiting “the publication, broadcast or transmission of sensitive
military information” after last week’s wave of attacks against government
troops by Tamil rebels in the Wanni region of northern Sri Lanka. Director
of Information Ariya Rubasinghe introduced the regulations in a press
release, stating that “the fresh promulgation is meant to plug any loopholes
that may have existed in the previous notification.”
The last order governing press coverage of the civil war came on 6 June
1998, when Sri Lanka’s defense ministry announced that all photographs, news
reports and television material on the war must be submitted to the military
for screening. CPJ sent a letter to President Kumaratunga on 9 June 1998,
noting that these regulations were exceptionally harsh, and all the more
troubling because of the military’s direct role in deciding what is
censored. Though the military censor was replaced by Rubasinghe, a civilian
official, in December 1998, and the foreign media exempted from the
screening requirements, censorship of domestic media has continued.
The current notification makes no mention of foreign correspondents based in
Sri Lanka, and it remains unclear whether they too will be forced to abide
by the new restrictions.
Recommended Action
Send appeals to the president:
Lanka’s 16-year-old civil war
resort to such authoritarian tactics to suppress the news
is especially crucial that matters of vital public interest be addressed
openly
and to make good on the promises she made in 1994, when she came to power on
a platform
championing civil liberties, including press freedom
Appeals To
Her Excellency Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga
President, Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka
Presidential Secretariat
Colombo-1, Sri Lanka
Fax: +94 1 333 703
E-mail: for_min@sri.lanka.net
Please copy appeals to the source if possible.
