Inter Press Service English News Wire
03-26-2008
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka, Mar. 26, 2008 (IPS/GIN) -- Media freedom has
hit a new low in Sri Lanka, where customs officials concerned with
anti-government material recently withheld advance copies of a book
by a respected Sri Lankan economist and researcher.
The book, "Economy of the conflict in Sri Lanka: From embargo
to repression," by Muttukrishna Sarvananthan, was published by the
Washington-based East West Center.
After days of wrangling, the parcel of books was finally
released to the author on Tuesday after Sarvananthan shot off a fax
to the director-general of customs, threatening legal action. Media
agencies and activist groups also put pressure on the customs
officials.
"I was not aware that there was a policy of detaining books, and
no one at customs told me under which law it was kept back,"
Sarvananthan said before the books were released.
"The naive custom officers [including a director] did not know
that this book is available online at the East-West Center Web site
and for sale at Amazon.com," the economist added. "In the present
information age there can be no effective censorship of any book,
let alone an academic book."
Sarvananthan's is not the only book available on the net that
was detained. A research book on information technology in Sri
Lanka has not been released for almost two months.
The author, Rohan Samarajiva, has not been informed when his
book, "ICT Infrastructure in Emerging Asia, Policy and Regulatory
Roadblocks," published by Sage India, will be released. Ironically,
both books can be downloaded free on the internet.
Samarajiva thinks his book may have been held back because it
was in the same consignment as another publication on the Sri
Lankan conflict.
He wrote on the Web site of LIRNEasia, a regional ICT
organization, that launched his book, that "The problem is that it
came in the same shipment as a book by an English scholar teaching
at the Colombo University which has the word militarization in the
title."
Sri Lankan customs officials periodically detain books and refer
them to the defense ministry or the department of information for
clearance.
"As far as I know, they have no right, legal or moral, to censor
books in a democratic society. I have evidence that this book
censorship is occurring on a broader scale and is not limited to
this single shipment from Sage India," Samarajiva's posting said.
"Our book has nothing about the conflict, other than a single
chapter that I co-authored on tele-use between the wars in the
government areas of Jaffna. But if this goes on, I may be compelled
to write a whole book on the destruction of civil liberties by
people who don't have a clue," he said.
Sarvananthan added that he has complained to Rajiva Wijesinha,
a professor who is secretary general of the Government Peace
Secretariat.
An increasingly edgy government has been cracking down on media
freedom in Sri Lanka. In the annual world ranking published by the
Paris-based Reporters without Borders, the island now languishes
at 141, a steep fall from 51 in 2002.
International media watchdogs have raised concerns over the new
appointment of a retired army general to the state-run television,
Rupavahini.
Last week, workers at Rupavahini, the country's largest TV
network, threatened to hold a strike that could have crippled
transmissions following a spate of attacks on employees. On March
14, Anurasiri Hettige became the fifth employee to be attacked by
unidentified assailants since end-December.
Rupavahini workers and media rights groups have linked the
attacks to the storming of the station by government minister
Mervyn Silva on Dec. 27. Silva was roughed up and his face was
colored with paint by angry Rupavahini employees as he was escorted
out under military protection
President Mahinda Rajapakse met with representatives from the
Rupavahini workers' unions and promised to bring an end to the
assaults. Silva was also summoned to the meeting midway through the
proceedings by the president.
However, soon after the conclusion of the meeting, a retired
major general of the Sri Lankan army, Sunil Silva, was appointed
to a senior administrative post at Rupavahini.
"A military leader in a state media group threatens the
objectivity of journalists who are already struggling to
independently confirm information about the combat between the
government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam," the New
York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said in a letter to the
Sri Lankan president over the weekend.
Susil Kindelpitiya, director, news at Sirasa, a private TV
station, has warned the inspector general of police in a letter
that Silva has threatened bodily harm to his staff. "Given the
numerous past instances of public violent attacks against citizens
and media institutions by Minister Mervyn Silva, we are seriously
concerned about threats to life and property of [Sirasa's] News
First staff," he said in the letter. Kindelpitiya has also warned
that Sirasa may be forced to take legal action.
Copyright 2008 IPS/GIN. The contents of this story can not be duplicated in any fashion without written permission of Global Information Network
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