‘Lawyers for Democracy’ condemn the harassment of the editor of Lakbima Newspaper, Sman Wagaarachchi by calling him to appear before the CID for questioning for the mere reasons that the caption to a photograph published in the paper has caused embarrassment to a party. While conceding that it may have coursed embarrassment, we are surprised that the editor is called for questioning by the CID after the paper has voluntarily, the very next day, publicly apologized to any embarrassment caused to the person in question. It is a revelation of the situation in the country today. Editor of a newspaper is called before the CID on a trivial matter while serious cases of violations of fundamental rights and attack on civilians in violation of Rule of Law passes by without atleast a comment from those in power. We condemn this move as it is in our view another incident of intimidation of the media to suppress the freedom of expression and to hold the media by its throat.
We call upon the authorities concerned to stop these harassments of media personals and ‘Lawyers for Democracy’ will be calling a meeting of all civil society groups to protest against this threat to media freedom.
Lal Wijenayake
Convener Lawyers for Democracy
‘Lawyers for Democracy (LfD) is a representative body of legal practitioners throughout the island. Conveners include Lal Wijenayake, Chandrapala Kumarage, J. C. Weliamuna, K. S. Ratnavale, Sudath Netthisinghe, Sudarshana Gunawardana. It was established on 10th December 2009’.
