Banning Websites July 22, 2009
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As anyone who’s ever done research on totalitarian regimes will tell you, banning media is a sure sign of wrong-doing by the ones doing the banning (Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union leap to mind). For that reason, Sri Lanka’s government hasn’t done itself any favors by banning yet another website, LankaNewsWeb. The website is still accessible by going to http://www.proxybrowsing.com and entering the address of the banned site on the page.
Below is the full statement by LankaNewsWeb.
Sri Lanka government has banned popular Sri Lankan website www.lankanew.com from Sri Lanka Telecom and two other service providers operating within Sri Lanka, who hosted the anews website, have stopped hosting the site with immediate effect following a request made by the government from them. The management of the website had not received an official communication stating the banning of the site.
The banning of the website comes soon after it carried two exclusive news stories.
One story was on the President’s eldest son, Namal Rajapakse, being greeted by a shower of stones by angry displaced persons in the Menik Farm camp. Although the story was prevented from being reported by many media institutions, Lanka News Web carried the story yesterday.
The other story was one on the death of LTTE Leader Velupillai Prabhakaran’s youngest son, Balachandran. The exclusive story carried in the Lanka News Web site yesterday explained how the military had killed Balachandran after his capture, along with two photographs of the child’s remains.
The banning of Lanka News Web is yet another incident that would now add to the already long list of cases of media suppression in the country.
The future of journalism is now under threat due to the intolerance of dissent and suppression of the media – the spate of attacks on journalists, threats from unidentified groups and the murder of leading newspaper editor.
The media suppression in the country has now become the focus of all international media groups, who have all called on the government to act with responsibility in addressing these incidents.
Sri Lanka’s Constitution provides for freedom of expression. Article 14(1)(a) provides that:
“Every citizen is entitled to the freedom of speech and expression including publication.”
Article 15 provides for a variety of restrictions on “fundamental rights,” including the right to freedom of expression in Article 14(1)(a). Article 15(2) provides that this right:
“… shall be subject to such restrictions as may be prescribed by law in the interests of racial and religious harmony or in relation to parliamentary privilege, contempt of court, defamation or incitement to an offence.”
Article 15(7) provides that, in addition, this right:
“… shall be subject to such restrictions as may be prescribed by law in the interests of national security, public order and the protection of public health or morality, or for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others, or of meeting the just requirements of the general welfare of a democratic society. For the purposes of this paragraph “law” includes regulations made under the law for the time being relating to public security.”
This framework leaves wide discretion for the government to impose restrictions in law or through “regulations made under the law for the time being relating to public security” that have been used repeatedly throughout the conflict to place severe restrictions on the media in the name of national security.
The right to freedom of expression is enshrined in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
“Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes the right to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”
Article 19 of the ICCPR, similarly provides for the right to freedom of opinion:
“1. Everyone shall have the right to hold opinions without interference.
2. Everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of his choice.
3. The exercise of the rights provided for in paragraph 2 of this article carries with it special duties and responsibilities. It may therefore be subject to certain restrictions, but these shall only be such as are provided by law and are necessary:
(a) For respect of the rights or reputations of others;
(b) For the protection of national security or of public order (ordre public), or of public health or morals.”
President Postpones Negotiations with Tamils July 22, 2009
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As mentioned before, a true “victory” in Sri Lanka will come not from the military defeat of the Tigers, but from a decision by the government to pass legislation in such a way that Tamils no longer feel oppressed and marginalized. When all Sinhalese and Tamils can more or less coexist without seeing the existence of the other as a threat to their own existence, then the government can say “We (all Sri Lankan people) have won.”
Sadly, President Rajapakse has essentially and blatantly turned this vision into a political ploy. In an interview with Indian newspaper The Hindu, Rajapakse stated that he was going to hold off conciliating with Tamils until after his (hopefully, for him) reelection in November 2011. What, is he going to hold this over our heads to make sure we do the “right thing” and reelect him? It’s as if we’re children and he’s saying “If you behave for the rest of the day, I’ll get you ice cream,” except the “rest of the day” is actually more than two years, and the “ice cream” is the chance for Sri Lanka to be a safe, peaceful country instead of a bitterly-divided war zone.
What needs to happen is that the majority voters need to hold their president accountable. It’d be an easy thing for Sinhalese voters to elect him out of office if they thought he was a totalitarian bully doing not what’s best for all Sri Lankans, but what’s best for his own cultural group and himself. Rajapakse counts on his “own” people to stand by him no matter what, and even if all Tamils are against him, he can still win.
The root of the problem is this: many Sri Lankans view the Us vs. Them dichotomy as existing between Tamils and Sinhalese, with the government and Sinhalese citizens on one side, and the militant rebels and Tamil citizens on the other. This is the wrong way to look at it, and the cause of the self-perpetuating cycle of violence. The proper dichotomy is this: The People vs. the Government/Tigers. The Sri Lankan people need to make a commitment to peace and hold the government accountable for doing the same, now that the Tigers are defunct as an official force. To Sri Lankan Tamils: you should be siding with your Sinhalese brothers against the government, not with the Tigers against the Sinhalese. Sinhalese folks: it’s not the Tamil citizens who are your enemies, it was the militant Tigers. Stop taking the government’s side no matter what. Side with your fellow citizens, no matter what ethnicity they are, and hold your government responsible for their failures to create peace.
Thug Minister Threatens Local Chairman July 22, 2009
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This man is Mervyn Silva, Sri Lanka’s Minister of Labour Relations and Manpower. He’s a controversial figure because of his use of strong-arm tactics and the numerous violent crimes, including assaults and rapes, allegedly attributed to him. Not a nice person.
Last week, giving a speech at the opening of a car dealership, Silva both claimed responsibility for the murder of journalist Lasantha Wickrematunge and threatened to do the same to a local chairmen who opposed Silva.
Here were his words: “Lasantha from the Leader paper went overboard. I took care of him. [Freedom campaigner and government critic Poddala Jayantha] agitated and his leg was broken. Now a fellow in my electorate is trying to stand against me. I now tell him in his own hometown, I will give him only seven more days. If he does not resign as chairman of the [district of] Kelaniya, don’t blame me later on. You’ll don’t find fault with me. If this fellow goes against what I say, I will send him to the place where I sent Lasantha.”
Several days later, an unidentified group of armed men stormed the local chairman’s house and smashed the place up.
Doctors Wavering? July 9, 2009
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Several Sri Lankan doctors are now telling the international media that earlier reports of civilian casualties were untrue. The Tigers, they said, had demanded that they inflate the numbers. This is conceivable. What is a little harder to believe are the government reports that not a single civilian was killed by government weapons. Not even accidentally? How could anyone know that for sure? If they had merely reported a low number–20 or 30–it would have at least seemed conceivable. But zero? It implies certainty, which implies fabrication.
The doctors also say that the hospital allegedly shelled in February was not shelled. International humanitarian groups say it was. This is just bizarre. How could this possibly be a subject up for debate? Either the hospital was shelled, or it was not shelled. Go look at the hospital. If it has shell damage, it was shelled. Ask some patients “Is it true or false that while you were staying in the hospital, portions of it exploded?” The entire thing has shades of 1984 written all over it. Just because a historical fact is asserted as the truth doesn’t change how it actually happened.
I’m not insinuating anything other than the whole thing is weird, and one side or the other or both is lying thru their teeth. Either the doctors were obliged to lie before, or they’re being obliged to lie now. Seriously, should it matter at this point? Instead of squabbling about whether or not the hospital was shelled, how about we focus on the people inside. Are they safe? Are they being taken care of? This is the priority, not the juvenile back-and-forth and self-aggrandizement. The healing needs to begin now.
