(FMM/IFEX) – According to FMM, on 14 August 1998, officers of the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) visited two English-language weeklies, “Sunday Times” and “Sunday Leader”, demanding to know the source of stories related to two government ministers. FMM has consistently opposed visits by the CID to newspaper editorial offices to demand information about the sources […]
(FMM/IFEX) – According to FMM, on 14 August 1998, officers of the Criminal
Investigations Department (CID) visited two English-language weeklies,
“Sunday Times” and “Sunday Leader”, demanding to know the source of stories
related to two government ministers. FMM has consistently opposed visits by
the CID to newspaper editorial offices to demand information about the
sources of news stories on the grounds that they violate media freedom.
In response to this incident, FMM has issued the following statement:
We have received reports that on 14 August, officials from the Criminal
Investigations Department visited the offices of the “Sunday Leader” and the
“Sunday Times”, and questioned the editors regarding a news item that had
appeared in those newspapers.
We are informed that the objective of this questioning was to discover how
these newspapers had received and published copies of a letter written by
Minister Jeyaraj Fernandopulle to the Speaker of Parliament asking for the
removal of the Chairman of the Parliamentary Select Committee appointed to
look into the allegations against officials of the bribery commission.
We see the invasion of newspaper offices by the police and the subjecting of
newspaper editors to this type of questioning as a direct threat to media
freedom and an insult to the dignity of media personnel.
We also wish to point out that actions such as this are in absolute
contravention of the promises given by this government when it came to power
that they would act in a way that is respectful of media freedom and of the
dignity of media personnel.
We consider that actions such as this, especially that of questioning
editors regarding their sources of information, constitute an act of
intimidation and seek to prevent the publication of similar news items in
the future. We vehemently condemn the questioning of newspaper editors by
the CID and appeal to the authorities concerned to ensure that such
incidents are not repeated.
