Sri Lanka It's Happening

March 30, 2004

The other day I wrote about the assault on the freedom of expression in Sri Lanka. Things have taken a turn for the worse. During the last few days we have seen the home of the Chief of a private tv station being bombed and we have also seen the police raid the printing press of the sunday leader.

Just weeks ago a leader of the JVP is said to have threatened an editor of a daily news paper. The TV boss who appeared on several stations claimed that he recieved death threats as well. Of course all this comes at a time when the president controls all the state media and the police. And the JVP of course happens to be her partners for the general election coming up this friday.

It's probably because of the control the president wields over the police that they supposedly raided the Sunday Leader without a warrant last sunday.

There is a silver lining to the clouds though. The commissioner of elections has finally decided to appoint a competent authority to temporarily take over the state owned TV stations. This is in view of the blatant abuse of state resources in slandering oher parties at the election.

The ruling party does not care about law suites that are flooding into the state media organizations simply because it will be public funds that will be used to pay the victims.

Posted by raditha at March 30, 2004 8:43 PM