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Sri Lankan media opposes Press Council reactivation

COLOMBO: The main media organisations in Sri Lanka have urged the government not to re-establish Press Council with powers to fine and imprison print journalists and argued that self-regulation, introduced six years ago, is working.

Seven media bodies, headed by the Editors’ Guild, have written to President Mahinda Rajapaksa saying media culture should not be based on charging, fining and jailing journalists.

The Council was reactivated earlier this month by the government. Staffed with government appointees, it adjudicates complaints against newspapers and has the power to imprison and fine journalists. When contacted by the BBC, the Media Minister declined comment on the matter.

In an editorial, the Daily Mirror said re-activation of the Press Council was a sign of a society going backwards. “Given the manner [in which] the government moved to re-activate the Press Council Act — weeks after the military victory over the LTTE — tempted many individuals and groups to add motives to the statements made by certain powerful individuals, days into the war victory”.

“One wonders whether the Executive has come under the pressure mounted by those individuals to gag the press that behaved in a quite responsible manner during the war. True there were a couple of bad eggs but an overwhelming majority of newspapers especially the independent ones adopted a high degree of self-censorship during the crucial phase of history”.

“Even a cursory glance at Sections 12, 15, 16 and 31 would make one realise the dangers that the democracy of this country would face in the event of full implementation of these sections which remained rather dormant ever since the introduction of the Press Council Act in 1973,” it said.

Speaker W.J.M. Lokubandara on Friday remarked in Parliament that the earlier decision to repeal laws necessary to take punitive action against misbehaving journalists had been “one of the most foolish moves”.

He said their decision to relinquish parliamentary powers had been wrong and it had caused an erosion of the supreme powers of the House. The Speaker made this observation during a cross-talk triggered by a statement by Media Minister Lakshman Yapa Abeywardena.

The Minister complained that one newspaper had erroneously quoted him as saying that the 13th Amendment would be implemented only after a referendum.

Separately, NGO Internews reported that more than 9,000 elders had applied for release from camps for war displaced. The government has taken steps to release those who are over 60 years of age from Vavuniya camps.

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