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Editors’ Guild requests Govt. action
The Editors Guild of Sri Lanka has requested President Mahinda Rajapakse to immediately conduct a full inquiry into the allegations of a plot to assassinate the owner of the Maharajah Group and reveal the findings to the country.
Guild president Upali Tennakoon, in a statement said that media freedom was very important for a country and should be safeguarded in the same way as democracy.

The statement said that when looking back at past experiences of acts against media freedom in the country, there had been a culture where media personnel had been murdered, editors assaulted and government leaders had threatened media institution owners.

There had been times where in addition to the threats, pressure had been put on media personnel and legal obstacles put in their way, it said. No attempt had been made to find out who was behind such acts and many of them still remain a mystery, the statement added.

Presently, there is a leadership in the country who pledged to build a new Sri Lanka and bring about a new media culture. It is in this midst that allegations have surfaced of an alleged plot to murder the owner of the Sirasa/MTV media institutions. While the Guild too is verifying the veracity of these allegations, it has directed serious attention towards the matter, the statement said.

It added that such allegations would only put tremendous pressure on media institution owners as well as media personnel and that it was the duty of the Government to get to the root of these allegations and, if proven correct, punish the guilty.

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