SOS for media reforms: staunch self-censorship, stand up for press freedom

"Journalists should not buy the bunkum that leaking out discrepancies is not conducive to national integrity or sovereignty. We sold our integrity and sovereignty when we genuflected to the powers. No more should we be the lap-dogs of governments. Repeal PSO, PTA should be our clarion call. Then we can prosecute our government before the war tribunal, ICJ and any court of law which could stop the rot this serendib isle has descended into."

by Pearl Thevanayagam

How the media brought down governments


(September 27, London, Sri Lanka Guardian)What do Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein from Washington Post, Chitra Subramaniam and N. Ram from Indian Express and The Hindu respectively and Andrew Gilligan have in common? They caused the downfall of leaders such as Richard Nixon, Rajiv Gandhi and Tony Blair.

Woodward and Bernstein are not your fly-by-night journalists who conduct their investigative journalism from their cubicles or take whistle-stop tours to conflict areas from their comfort zones in plush apartments. They had to tighten their belts and use their own funds to investigate the Watergate bugging for months which brought the Nixon administration down in 1974.

Subramaniam and Ram delved for months into Bofors and fought vehemently with the CBI which blocked their investigation into Bofors Scandal where Rajiv Gandhi was a close acquaintance of the middleman between Bofors and the Indian government, Ottavio Quattrocchi for winning a bid to supply India’s 155mm field howitzer which brought personal fortune to Gandhi and his associates in the deal a cool Rs 400 million in the ‘80s. Gandhi lost the 1989 election as a result.

In 2003 Andrew Gilligan, BBC’s defence and diplomatic correspondent’s report at the Hutton Inquiry that Britain sexed up dossiers on the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq brought about the downfall of Tony Blair. In 2007 he also caused the defeat of the two term London Mayor Ken Livingstone exposing the various business deals he gave to his friends and associates.

Death-knell of the free press

Such is the power of the media and the reason why successive Sri Lankan governments have systematically muzzled journalists with draconian press laws and in recent decades extra-judicial measures such as contract killings, assaults, threats and imprisonment on flimsy grounds is that journalists did not have back-ups in terms of independent and powerful media outlets and paucity of protection. It also does not help that in the absence of a decent living wage for journalists not working for the state-owned media organizations journalists often become pawns of corrupt politicians, officers in the armed forces, businessmen and other powerful authorities.

The dis-information counsellors posted to diplomatic missions by Ms Kumaratunga to counter LTTE propaganda and subsequently by Mahinda Rajapaksa never had it so good. They did not pass any examinations to be posted in plum states much to the chagrin of seasoned diplomats. The only credentials they had were that they were willing to lie for the state through their teeth throwing away all journalistic norms and ethics and selling their souls for a mess of pottage. In return they received DPL salaries, duty-free vehicles, plush apartments etc. which they would never ever have had in their wildest dreams.

Yet we had journalists who stubbornly refused to cow down to the powers that be and sadly at least 37 journalists paid with their lives including Richard de Soysa, Sivaram alias Taraki, Aiyathurai Nadesan, Atputharajah, Keerthi de Alwis, Nimalarajan and Lasantha Wickrematunga since 1990. Many others were intimidated, harassed, tortured and imprisoned including this author. Cartoonist Ekneliyagoda is still missing. That intrepid and fearless defence correspondent Iqbal Athas whose family were targeted for constant threats and assaults is in hiding. Sunday Times is devoid of a precious column. Keith Noyahr, another respected journalist was brutally attacked and left senseless.

Reading Sunday Times editor Sinha Ratnatunge's reminiscences of Esmond Wickremesinghe, the father of modern journalism, about the golden days of press freedom, one wonders whether journalists in Sri Lanka would ever enjoy this period once more.

The only silver lining in the black media cloud is the foreign correspondents who have the support of wealthy international media organisations who provide them with the necessary cover and support and thanks to these carefully chosen journalists and their local stringers the government’s accountability, human rights violations, dubious business deals and scores of undemocratic practices are revealed to the rest of the world.

Sri Lanka ranks 163 by RSF (Reporters Sans Frontieres) among 175 countries. The impunity of this government in suppressing media should and can be overturned if journalists are supported by an independent Press Complaints Commission and provided with a decent salaries. Then there is less risk of selling oneself to mere materialistic gains. International media watchdogs such as CPJ (Committee to protect Journalists), RSF only cry foul when a journalist is murdered, assaulted, intimidated or imprisoned.

How to regain press freedom

Media laws alone do not suppress press freedom. Journalists too are to blame in that they choose self-censorship due to intimidation and threat of being sacked by media institutions. The PCC (Press Complaints Commission) consists largely of Lake House journalists who would not know press freedom if it hit between their eyes. The function of Lake House journalists if they wish to retain their jobs or advance their careers is to beat the drums of any party in power and do a side business of selected ministers’ propaganda for which they are paid handsomely; meaning they plug in their performances in the media in a positive light. Therefore, PCC has no teeth.

Laws since 1956 beginning with the 1956 Public Security Ordinance Act and the sixth amendment to the constitution states:

17. (1) Where the Prime Minister considers it necessary in the public interest to do so for the maintenance of any service which, in his opinion, is essential to the life of the community, he may, by Order published in the Gazette, declare that service to be an essential service.

(2) Where any service is declared by Order made under subsection (1) to be an essential service, -

(a) any person who, on the day immediately preceding the date of publication of that Order in the Gazette, was engaged or employed, or who, after that day, is engaged or employed, on any work in connexion with that service shall be guilty of an offence if he fails or refuses to attend at his place of work or employment or at such other place as may from time to time be designated by his employer or a person acting under the authority of his employer, or if he fails or refuses to perform such work as he may be directed by his employer or by a person acting under the authority of his employer to perform; or

(b) any person who, by violence to person or property, or by spoken or written threat, intimidation or insult of any kind to whomsoever addressed or by molestation of any description, or in any other manner whatsoever-

(i) impedes, obstructs, delaysor restricts the carrying on of that service, or

(ii) compels, incites, induces or encourages any other person employed in or in connexion with the carrying on of that service to surrender or depart from his employment (whether or not such other person does so surrender or depart in consequence), or

(iii) prevents any other person from offering or accepting employment in or in connexion with the carrying on of that service; or

(c) any person who, by any physical act or by any speech or writing, incites, induces or encourages any other person to commit any act specified in paragraph (b) of this subsection (whether or not such other person commits in consequence any act so specified), shall be guilty of an offence: Provided that any cessation of work in consequence of a strike commenced by a registered trade union solely in pursuance of an industrial dispute shall not be deemed to be an offence under the preceding provisions of this subsection. In this proviso, the expression "industrial dispute" shall have the meaning assigned to it by section 48 of the Industrial Disputes Act.

(3) Where a person is prosecuted for an offence under paragraph (c) of subsection (2), it shall be a defence for him to prove that he was prevented from attending at his place of work or employment owing to illness or owing to the fact that transport facilities were not available for him to travel to such place.

(4) Every person who commits an offence under this section shall, on conviction after summary trial before a Magistrate, be liable to rigorous imprisonment for a term not less than three months and not exceeding five years or to a fine not exceeding five thousand rupees or to both such imprisonment and fine.

This PSO followed by PTA (Prevention of Terrorism Act) promulgated by Sirimavo Bandaranaike in 1972 following the JVP insurrection of April 1971 clamped free media expression and continues to this very day.

PTA allowed President J.R. Jayewardene to impose the first blanket censorship on news following the bloody ethnic riots of July 1983. How could anyone forget the playing of classical music during news time on TV and radio when JR refused to declare curfew for 72 hours as PM Premadasa, Gamini Dissanaike and Cyril Matthew rallied youth including Royalists and Anandians in their school uniforms to plunder Tamil liquor shops and loot and destroy Tamil houses and business establishments citing the killing of 13 soldiers in Jaffna by the fledgling Tamil Tigers and parading their bodies in the streets of Colombo. Little did the media expose these very same soldiers raped and killed three women teachers in Jaffna Peninsula. When IGP Rudra Rajasinham asked JR whether a curfew should be imposed JR declined his request. Had the IGP been an honourable gentleman he would have resigned. But he carried on since his position as IGP was more important than that of his conscience.

I still have copies of newspapers with their front pages blanked out.

Why I have hopes for press freedom in Sri Lanka is that many intrepid and honest journalists sacrificed their lives and many have still not sold their souls for material gains.

Journalists should not buy the bunkum that leaking out discrepancies is not conducive to national integrity or sovereignty. We sold our integrity and sovereignty when we genuflected to the powers. No more should we be the lap-dogs of governments. Repeal PSO, PTA should be our clarion call. Then we can prosecute our government before the war tribunal, ICJ and any court of law which could stop the rot this serendib isle has descended into.