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PAFFREL counts 940 complaints within nine hours of polls campaign ending
by Chaminda Silva
Election monitoring organization People’s Action for Free and Fair Elections (PAFFREL) says it has received 940 complaints about unlawful propaganda on social media in the nine hours after Election campaign ended at midnight on Sunday (02) until 9 am Monday (03).
PAFFREL Executive Director Rohana Hettiarachchi told the media yesterday that 140 such posts had already been removed as per the notifications issued by the Election Commission to the relevant institutions.
Hettiarachchi said that during the past two months of the pre-election period, 3444 instances of violations of election laws on Facebook had been observed. He added that the vast majority of those complaints were about posting on Facebook.
Hettiarachchi said 75 incidents of harassment of candidates including women and 45 were about dissemination of false information.
PAFFREL had gathered the information from monitoring of social media during the election monitoring and steps would be taken to inform the relevant institutions about it in the future, Hettiarachchi said.