Banning Websites

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.”