In a week dominated by news of the terror attacks in Mumbai, India, the Sri Lanka Parliament on Friday too joined to condemn the attacks and reiterated the need for a common approach to tackle the menace of terrorism world wide.
While Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama reiterated the words of President Mahinda Rajapaksa on the “need for concerted action to eradicate terrorism”, Opposition Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe said the eradication of terrorism cannot be left to the military alone but needed to be tackled on a political and socio-economic level as well with JVP MP Vijtha Herath stating that such incidents should strengthen Sri Lanka’s resolve to eradicate terrorism.
Other than the terror attacks in India, most government legislators who spoke throughout last week during the committee stage debate on the Budget focussed on the military efforts to take control of areas in the north from the LTTE which they said should take precedence over all other issues facing the country.
The issue of media freedom too figured during last week’s debate when the votes of the Ministry of Mass Media and Information were taken up for debate.
Ironic as this may sound, it was none other than minister Mervyn Silva who was advising journalists on how to uphold the dignity of their profession during the course of the debate on Thursday. The minister who has gained notoriety for his intolerance towards the media asked journalists to desist from engaging in “yellow journalism” and accused certain sections of the electronic media for corrupting society by airing certain shows. He also took a dig at the two ministers in charge of the subject of media, Minister Anura Priyadharshana Yapa and Minister (Non-Cabinet) Lakshman Yapa Abeywardena saying it was due to their “weakness” that some media institutions were behaving in this manner.
JHU MP Kotupola Amarakitthi Thera too spoke on the “corruption of the minds of the young” by television and radio shows being aired by several private media institutions. “Some of these institutions have gone beyond what is traditionally and culturally acceptable to our society. The family unit in our country is under serious threat,” the Thera said.
The Thera also quoted figures released by the Law Commission of Sri Lanka according to which there were 12,800 divorce cases last year. “In our country we allow matters to get out of hand before tackling them. This is what happened with the terrorist problem also .We must not let the same thing happen with regard to the deterioration of values in our society,” the Thera said.
While concerns about the role of the media were being expressed by some MPs, the threat to the independent media in the country as a result of attacks on journalists and media institutions was taken up by several opposition MPs. UNP MP Dayasiri Jayasekera said the government was slowly trying to take control, of all media institutions in the country referring to the attempt as the "Berlusconi effect” being translated to the “Rajapaksa effect” in Sri Lanka. “The Italian President Silvio Berlusconi after he came to power ended up taking control of most of the media institutions in that country. Now the same thing is happening in Sri Lanka with the Rajapaksa administration,” he said.
The role of the state media too came in for criticism from many opposition MPs with JVP Colombo district MP Sunil Handunnetti saying that unless there were more balanced programmes shown on state television, they would be rejected by the people.
Minister Dilan Perera said successive governments used the state media to their advantage and no one’s hands were clean when it came to the issue of media freedom. “No government has a squeaky clean image when it comes to media rights and that is the reality,” he said.
The problems faced by Tamil journalists in particular was aired by TNA National List MP P. Ariyanethram who said successive governments in office have done their best to curb media rights and only champion the cause of journalists when they were in the opposition but did little when they were in power.
The recently gazetted regulations on private television stations too came in for criticism from opposition politicians, but Media Minister Anura Yapa said they had been formulated after two years of discussions and that there was no hidden agenda. “There has been a rapid growth in private electronic media institutions in the country and there is a need to regulate them,” he said.
The minister also dismissed allegations that the government was trying to control the media. “In my view, in this day and age with the proliferation of information through various channels, it is impossible to curb the free flow of information,” he said adding that it was only military related information that needed some sort of monitoring so that the lives of those in the frontlines would not be jeopardised by vital information being leaked. |
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