Editorial
BAB irredeemably bad

Thursday 8th June, 2023
The Rajapaksa-Wickremesinghe administration has earned notoriety for trying to defend the indefensible. Cabinet Spokesman and Media Minister Bandula Gunawardena made a vain attempt at Tuesday’s weekly press briefing to defend the proposed Broadcasting Authority Bill (BAB) and dispel fears being expressed about it. Health Minister Keheliya Rambukwella, who was present there, stuck his oar in; he said there was no reason for the media organisations that neither committed any transgressions nor intended to do so in the future to fear the BAB. His argument is seriously flawed in that dealing with errant media outfits is not the primary purpose of the BAB, which is aimed at facilitating the suppression of the media in their entirety. It is also intended to have the same intimidating and unsettling effect as the sword of Damocles on journalists and media owners; if it is enacted, all electronic media institutions will be at the mercy of the government, which will exercise control over the renewal of their transmission licences among other things. The BAB will inhibit journalists from being critical of the government and exposing its corrupt deals, etc.
Why is the government in a mighty hurry to introduce broadcasting regulatory laws at this juncture? Its focus should be on stabilising the economy, resuming debt repayment and granting some relief to the public. One of the tasks that the SLPP publicly entrusted President Ranil Wickremesinghe with following the ouster of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa was to bring order out of chaos. He succeeded in doing so—credit where credit is due. He acted decisively and saved Parliament with the help of the military, who aborted an attempt by a mob to march on it, last year. If the hordes had been able to storm Parliament, the country would have been plunged into anarchy. Considering the positive impact the President’s bold action had on democracy and efforts being made to bring about political stability and revive the economy, only a hypocrite of the worst order will deny him credit for that. Unfortunately, a few months on, the government on his watch is trying to bring ‘chaos out of order’ by undertaking missions that are bound to endanger democracy and the semblance of political stability that has come about, and, worse, negate whatever gains the country has made on the economic front during the past several months.
The country has managed with the existing broadcasting regulatory laws during insurrections, a protracted war, and numerous socio-political upheavals including Aragalaya. So, why should the government make haste to bring in new media laws at present? It had better get its priorities right without biting off more than it can chew and inviting trouble.
It may be that the government is trying to make the most of the current situation and introduce oppressive laws to consolidate its hold on power. One may recall that in the early noughties, Wickremesinghe, as the Prime Minister, endeared himself to the media by doing away with criminal defamation laws and received praise from journalists, and deservedly so. But all the good he has done will be gone in a jiffy if the proposed broadcasting laws are enacted.
The UNP has a history of suppressing media freedom. It had journalists assaulted and murdered. The Jayewardene and Premadasa governments even did not allow the privately-owned television stations to carry local news bulletins. It was President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga who granted the electronic media that freedom, soon after the 1994 regime change. The UNP lost and opted to avoid presidential elections for about three decades, and having secured the presidency fortuitously, it is apparently reverting to its old totalitarian ways, ably assisted by its partner in crime, the SLPP, whose leaders had journalists killed and media institutions torched.
There is no way the government can justify its efforts to introduce the BAB. Some ruling party politicians have said there could be an extensive discussion thereon before it is presented to Parliament, but what is there to be discussed about an irredeemably bad Bill?
The media continues to draw public criticism, and calls are being made for new laws to enable better regulation thereof, especially in view of the phenomenal expansion of social media. But introducing oppressive laws as envisaged in the BAB is certainly not the way to set about it.
Pressure must be cranked up on the government to deep-six the BAB. Journalists and all others who cherish media freedom and democracy must not rest until that goal is achieved. Boot, saddle, to horse, and away!
Editorial
Of that warning

President Anura Kumara Dissanayake continues to draw heavy flak from the Opposition for repeatedly declaring, at the NPP’s Local Government (LG) election rallies, that he will readily approve financial allocations for the local councils to be won by the NPP and others will face difficulties in obtaining funds as the political rivals of the NPP cannot be considered clean. The Opposition and some election monitors have taken exception to what can be considered a warning issued by President Dissanayake, and brought it to the notice of the Election Commission (EC).
The Government Information Department has denied a media report that the EC issued a letter pertaining President Dissanayake’s aforesaid statement. This is a strange state of affairs in the run-up to a crucial election, where the stakes of the ruling NPP are much higher than those of its rivals.
It is clear to any intelligent person that President Dissanayake is leveraging his position as the Finance Minister in a bid to influence the outcome of the upcoming LG polls. The message he has conveyed to the electorate is loud and clear; the local government institutions will be at his mercy and therefore it is prudent for the public to vote for the NPP and ensure the smooth functioning local councils. The EC ought to take the presidential statement in question seriously and take appropriate action.
It behoves the EC to refrain from acting like the three proverbial monkeys—refusing to hear, speak and see evil—in respect of the presidential statements that have the potential to influence the outcome of the upcoming polls. It has to act in response to the Opposition’s complaints promptly.
If the EC has not reacted to the controversial presidential statement in question, as the Government Information Department has reportedly claimed, it should make its position known to the public without further delay lest its silence should be considered a sign of subservience or partiality to the ruling coalition led by President Dissanayake. It is duty-bound to ensure a level playing field for all political parties and independent groups in the fray. The government must not be allowed to bulldoze its way through at the expense of its political rivals.
The EC should not consider President Dissanayake’s warning at issue as mere campaign rhetoric, for there have been instances where contempt-of-court charges were pressed against some politicians over their political speeches. The imprisonment of S. B. Dissanayake over a derogatory statement he made about the Supreme Court, at a Vap Magul ceremony in Habaraduwa in November 2003 is a case in point.
The Opposition’s reaction to the President’s warning that he will impose restrictions on fund allocations for the local councils to be won by parties other than the NPP has been lukewarm. In fact, the Opposition does not flog any issue hard enough to shape public opinion. It has not even been able to highlight what the Batalanda Commission report says about the JVP’s violent past. The green-channelling of 323 red-flagged freight containers has been forgotten. The Opposition has claimed in Parliament that a member of the incumbent Cabinet was interdicted over a fraud while he was serving in the State Fertilizer Corporation, but it has baulked at naming the person concerned and demanding his resignation from the Cabinet.
The government has been able to distract the Opposition, which has also stopped short of cranking up pressure on the EC to take up the President’s aforesaid warning. The Opposition has not pointed out that the Colombo Municipal Council under UNP control survived several SLFP-led governments including those with two-thirds majorities under President Mahinda Rajapaksa and President Gotabaya Rajapaksa.
Leader of the House and Minister Bimal Ratnayake was spot on when he told Parliament recently that there was no bigger asset to the NPP government than the current Opposition, whose bark was worse than its bite. Nothing can be a graver threat to democracy than the aggressiveness of a powerful government as well as the meekness of the Opposition and the so-called independent commissions.
Editorial
Selective use of PTA

Saturday 19th April, 2025
Governments with steamroller majorities become impervious to reasoning. Blinded by the arrogance of power, they dig their own political graves. This, we have witnessed on numerous occasions in this country. When ensconced in power, politicians practise the exact opposite of what they preach during their election campaigns.
The JVP-led NPP government finds itself in an unenviable position. It has had some arrests made under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA), which it used to condemn as a repressive law and pledged to scrap as a national priority. The JVP leaders who were arrested and detained in the late 1980s under the PTA must know what it is like to be held under that draconian law.
There is no way the government can justify the arrest and detention of former State Minister Sivanesanthurai Chandrakanthan alias Pilleyan under the PTA and the statements being made by its leaders that he has been arrested in connection with the Easter Sunday carnage contrary to what is stated in the detention order. Allegations against Pilleyan must be probed and if irrefutable evidence to prove charges against him can be ascertained, he must be prosecuted. But the CID should not have been directed to use the PTA to arrest and detain him.
One of the conditions the EU has laid down for extending GSP+ is the abolition of the PTA. The government will have a hard time convincing the EU that it is serious about doing away with the PTA while using the draconian law selectively to deal with its political opponents.
No one who cherishes human rights and the rule of law will oppose the ongoing investigation into the abduction and disappearance of Vice Chancellor of the Eastern University Prof. Sivasubramaniam Ravindranath in 2006, but on no grounds can the government’s efforts to turn Pilleyan’s detention into a kind of political circus be countenanced.
Meanwhile, the NPP government has used an ad hominem in its argument against attorney-at-law Udaya Gammanpila, who is Pilleyan’s counsel; it has been carrying out irrelevant attacks on Gammanpila and vilifying him instead of addressing his arguments or position on the issue. It has claimed that Gammanpila has no experience whatsoever with handling court cases on his own, and therefore it is puzzling why he has undertaken to handle Pilleyan’s case. In peddling this argument, the government has made a mistake. It is counterproductive for the JVP/NPP to question Gammanpila’s ability to appear for a client in courts on the grounds that he has no experience with handling court cases on his own, for the same logic can be used to bolster the Opposition’s claim that the JVP/NPP, which has not even run a wayside kiosk, is not equal to the task of governing the country.
If the government actually believes that Gammanpila cannot handle Pilleyan’s case properly, it should be happy, for it wants Pilleyan thrown behind bars, doesn’t it? Sun Tzu has said in The Art of War that you must not disturb your enemies when they are making mistakes. If the government thinks Pilleyan has made a mistake by retaining Gammanpila, who, it says, cannot handle his case properly, why should it make an issue of it without keeping quiet?
Editorial
Unpunished crimes

Friday 18th April, 2025
Many crimes, including high-profile assassinations, have gone unpunished in this country during the past several decades. The CID has selectively reopened an investigation into one of them. It has arrested and detained former State Minister Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan alias Pilleyan over the abduction and disappearance of Vice Chancellor of the Eastern University Professor Sivasubramaniam Ravindranath in 2006. The victim had received death threats from the breakaway LTTE group, led by Vinayagamoorthi Muralitharan alias Karuna. Pilleyan was a prominent member of that outfit.
What Pilleyan is alleged to have been involved in is a very serious crime, which must be investigated thoroughly, and those who masterminded and perpetrated it must be brought to justice. However, the police and the government must bear in mind that fairness in criminal investigations is a cornerstone of justice.
The CID has used the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA), which the JVP/NPP leaders themselves have condemned as draconian, to arrest and detain Pilleyan. The CID would not have done so without the blessings of the JVP-led NPP government, which has made a mockery of its much-advertised commitment to doing away with that law. One is puzzled by the timing of Pillayan’s arrest, his 90-day detention, and questionable claims that senior JVP/NPP leaders, including Public Security Minister Ananda Wijepala, have made implicating him in the Easter Sunday carnage although he has been arrested in connection with the abduction and disappearance of Prof. Ravindranath. This queer turn of events makes one wonder whether the government is driven by an ulterior motive, with pressure mounting on it to ensure a breakthrough in the ongoing investigations into the Easter Sunday terror attacks before the upcoming sixth anniversary of the carnage.
Former Minister Udaya Gammanpila, who is Pilleyan’s counsel, has said the CID is capable of ‘beating a rabbit in such a way that it eventually admits that it is a fox’. The CID has amply demonstrated its ability to obtain confessions in that manner, on numerous occasions, especially after the murder of Seya Sewwandi, a four-year-old girl, in Kotadeniyawa, in 2015. Two men and a schoolboy were taken into custody on suspicion over that heinous crime, severely beaten and vilified before the real murderer was arrested. One of the men and the schoolboy complained that they had been tortured during interrogation and asked to make confessions.
It is a supreme irony that the JVP, the main constituent of the ruling NPP coalition, which has undertaken to ensure that justice is served in respect of the abduction and disappearance of a Vice Chancellor, has been blamed for assassinating two Vice Chancellors—Prof. Stanley Wijesundera and Prof. Chandratne Patuwathavithane—for defying its illegal orders. Those intrepid academics were killed in 1989 while serving as the VCs of the University of Colombo and the University of Moratuwa, respectively.
All those who are responsible for the abduction of Prof. Ravindranath in a high security zone in Colombo must be made to face the full force of the law. Similarly, the university dons in the NPP are duty-bound to have the masterminds behind the assassinations of Prof. Wijesundera and Prof. Patuwathavithane also brought to justice.
Prof. Wijesundera and Prof. Patuwathavithane were killed for resisting the JVP’s attempt to disrupt university education. Today, the leaders of the JVP, which had those professors gunned down for refusing to obey its illegal order to close universities in protest against the Indo-Lanka Accord and the devolution of power through the Provincial Council system are all out to ingratiate themselves with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi; they also stand accused of helping further India’s strategic interests at the expense of Sri Lanka! They won’t reveal the contents of the recently inked MoUs/agreements with India, especially the one on defence cooperation! They have also pledged to hold the Provincial Council elections after conducting the Local Government polls!
Any man’s death diminishes those who are involved in mankind, as John Donne has said poetically. Needless to say, the deaths of hundreds of men diminish them more. Curiously, the massacre of about 600 policemen, who surrendered to the LTTE, in the Eastern Province, in 1990, on the orders of the then UNP government, has gone uninvestigated. The family members of those police personnel, killed in the line of duty, deserve justice just like those of the Easter Sunday carnage victims. Let the NPP government be urged to order a probe into the massacre of the policemen in the East.
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