COLOMBO – Media watchdog organizations, monitoring the arrest and detention of lankanewsweb.org editor Chathurange de Silva, have expressed concerns over the arrest, which though carried out following all legal protocols, had been done so in a manner to intimidate journalists.
In joint statement issued last week, the Free Media Movement (FMM), Sri Lanka Working Journalists Association (SLWJA) and the Federation of Media Employees Trade Unions (FMETU), also expressed hope about the arrest would not lead to restrictions on journalists reporting on the working of the court in Sri Lanka.
The statement in full:
Desmond Chathuranga de Silva, the editor of the lankanewsweb.org website, who was arrested on August 31, based on a complaint received by the Computer Crimes Division of the Criminal Investigation Department, was produced in court on September 1 and remanded until September 14.
He has been charged with publishing news articles on his website that negatively impact the judiciary and the judicial hierarchy under Article 111 C of the Constitution, for admitting that he is the administrator of the website and for destabilizing the public order of the country under Section 6 of the Computer Crimes Act.
He was arrested with a warrant signed by Justice Lanka Jayaratne and his computers, mobile phones and other devices were taken into custody by the Criminal Investigation Department.
The article in question, titled ‘Fraudulent path created for Easter attack suspect attorney- at-law Hijaz, to obtain bail,’ with a sub title reading, ‘Judges also receive money, when the door of the Court of Appeal opens for five million. Cat’s paw behind granting bail’, is clearly a careless case of reporting. As the writer, de Silva is responsible for verifying the authenticity of the information on the news article.
The website also does not seem to respect media ethics in general.
Although the arrests were made legally, media organizations have noted that the process of a large group going to arrest the web editor was an act that intimidates journalists.
The member organizations of the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), the FMM, the SLWJA and the FMETU, believe the incident will not develop into a process where the positive analysis of court decisions, exploring the work of the courts and the freedom to report its irregularities, will be deprived.