And Then They Came For the Sri Lanka Guardian

And Then They Came For the Sri Lanka Guardian

By • March 30, 2011 • • Comments : 0


" Outspoken stand of Sri Lanka Guardian has exposed to be targeted by the section of the media that has surrendered its scruples to the bigoted state dictates. One after the other, they are joining the bandwagon to collectively assault the remaining independent media with false, scurrilous and vexatious stories and Sri Lanka Guardian is in the frontline attack."


(March 30, New Delhi, Sri Lanka Guardian) ‘No other profession calls on its practitioners to lay down their lives for their art to save the armed forces and, in Sri Lanka, journalism.

‘In the course of the past few years, the independent media have increasingly come under attack.

‘Electronic and print-media institutions have been burnt, bombed, sealed and coerced. Countless journalists have been harassed, threatened and killed.

‘It has been my honour to belong to all those categories and now especially the last’, slain founder and Editor in Chief of Sunday Leader (read more -external link.)

These are the last few verses from the pen of the iconic editor Lasantha Wickramatunga of the Sunday Leader before his premeditated cold blooded murder in the broad day light in the highway for being honest, outspoken and critical of the government.

He was killed for holding so much facts that no other journalists could have acquired in the recent history of Sri Lanka. His standing was threat to those thriving on the failures that is plaguing Sri Lanka.

The independent media in Sri Lanka has become spineless after having gone through the terrible process that killed the yeomen like Lasantha Wickramatunga. Those who scream in the media at present are those blessed by the state to carry on its mission to further subjugate the remainder of the independent media. This is the evolving methodology of the government its ever growing intelligence service.

Outspoken stand of Sri Lanka Guardian has exposed to be targeted by the section of the media that has surrendered its scruples to the bigoted state dictates. One after the other, they are joining the bandwagon to collectively assault the remaining independent media with false, scurrilous and vexatious stories and Sri Lanka Guardian is in the frontline attack.

Our readers will know that Sri Lanka Guardian survived life threatening situations in the hands of the goons associated with the government and the state intelligence service for being outspoken. Our survival has paved the way for us to play an important role to safeguard and uphold the basic democratic values that are denied by the heavy state interventions in the day to day life of the society.

The latest joiner in the anti-independent media group campaign is the Sinhala medium Irurasa (www.irudina.lk) published by the Leader Publications (Private) Ltd. Irurasa is non other than a sister newspaper of the Sunday Leader that has embarked on the very mission that Late Lasantha Wickramatunge would not have allowed even at his death bed.

Recently, in response to the wild allegations by the Lanka C News of our involvement with the external intelligence agencies [i.e. Centre Intelligence Agency ( CIA) and Research & Analysis Wing ( R&AW) ], we officially wrote to its editor and the contents was published under the heading: ’Sri Lanka Guardian demands apology from the Lanka C News for false and defamatory story’.


(March 27, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) The editor of the Sri Lanka Guardian sent a letter to the editor of Lanka C News demanding an immediate apology and the publication of withdrawal of a fabricated news item published on C News on the 25th of March. In this news item, a person signed as the special correspondent wrote that a meeting was held in Washington between three web publications, including the Sri Lanka Guardian, organized by a lady officer from the American State Department who formerly worked for the CIA, and facilitated by the American Embassy in Sri Lanka, held in order to discuss the Sri Lankan government.

The editor of the Sri Lanka Guardian in his letter stated that he has never visited Washington and that this entire story about this meeting is a fictitious story. He also stated that he has had no connection at any time with any officer of the American embassy in Sri Lanka or elsewhere, nor any contact with the American State Department. He demanded that the editor of C News should withdraw this news item with an apology and that, under the Sri Lankan law, this publication amounts to defamation. In his letter he also stated that the matter will be referred to lawyers for further action.

He further stated that calling those who work in media 'traitors' is also a deliberate defamatory statement under the Sri Lankan law. He went on to explain that the defense of media freedom is in fact the defense of the rights of the people themselves, and that where free media is suppressed, it is the nation that suffers. The suppression of free media is an unpatriotic act and the defense of free media is essential for defending the freedoms and the welfare of a nation.



Irurasa’s intervention is an extension of the progressive attack on Sri Lanka Guardian by the Island, Helsinki based rogue Asian Tribune, Lanka Web, Daily News, Lakbimanews, The Nation and the Lanka C News. Irurasa would not have published its latest baseless and fabricated write-up against Sri Lanka Guardian’s editor, if it had followed the mantra of the late Lasantha Wickamatunga.

The attacks against the Sri Lanka Guardian are multi prong. The government backed Helsinki based Guru of the Asian Tribune is the guiding force who too has embarked in the spikes attack against us backed by the anonymous Novice De Silva-the so-called nincompoop Underpala.




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