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- Observer.co.uk,
- Sunday April 29, 2001
In the nineteen-fifties and 'sixties Sri Lanka, then known as Ceylon, had one of the most vibrant print media in the Asian region. The first attempt to curb the media in 1964 resulted in the incumbent government being overthrown when the Press Council Bill was defeated in Parliament.
That unfortunately was the last victory for freedom of expression. Since then successive governments have systematically undermined freedom of expression as democracy itself came under threat. Independent publishing houses were either acquired by the government or closed down under emergency regulations. Electronic media has been kept under strict government control.
The outbreak of the Tamil separatist war in 1983, gave the government an ideal reason to further tighten controls. The country has been run under emergency regulations for most of the past three decades - with censorship the norm rather than the exception.
Intimidation of journalists and media owners, filing of criminal defamation cases against editors and publishers, restrictions on state advertising, and in extreme cases murder have all been used to silence the media.
Reporting the separatist war, one of the bloodiest conflicts in the world, was relatively easy in the first decade. However the Sri Lanka government drew its own lessons from the restrictions imposed on the media by the western allies during the Gulf War.
Severe restrictions have been imposed on journalists reporting from government areas of the north and east of the country,where the separatist war is been fought. Since 1995 access to rebel held areas has been totally denied with threats of serious actions under emergency regulations for any journalist who dared to break the ban.
Strict censorship on local and foreign media during military debacles has left people in dark. Any news organization or journalist which report news adverse to the government is quickly branded as a rebel sympathiser by the powerful state owned print and electronic media which still has the biggest reach.
Intense campaigning for media law reforms has been scuttled by the incumbent government fearing a free media would undermine its credibility by exposing widespread corruption, incompetence in governance and rigged elections.
The Tamil separatist rebel organisation, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) has been no less tolerant of the media. Journalists who criticise the organisation has been routinely murdered and journalists visiting rebel areas are under strict surveillance.
Any criticism of the rebels by people living in the north and east is dealt with harshly. However, despite the odds, a section of media, especially the print media has continued to do exactly that. Editors and journalists have paid a high price for their courage. At least a dozen journalists have been murdered, some have fled the country and others face physical violence, or face court cases and well-orchestrated abuse by the state media.
News organisations critical of the government often find private sector advertisers have been intimidated and state advertising banned. In the past few months, the government has used another weapon to increase pressure on the media. Taxes on newsprint have been increased by 15% at a time of high newsprint prices in the world market and pressure on advertising due to a serious economic downturn while the private electronic media is been threatened with massive increases in licence fees for transmitting stations. In Sri Lanka freedom of expression is facing perhaps its biggest threat since the island nation achieved independence from Britain in 1948.
Waruna Karunathilaka has covered the ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka since 1984 for a range of local and foreign news organisations, and is currently working for Time magazine and Reuters. Waruna is a founder member and former convenor of the Free Media Movement, a non-partisan and independent group of journalists and editors in Sri Lanka committed to freedom of expression and which is campaigning for an an end to governmental control of media institutions
