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MEDIA-SRI LANKA: Edgy Customs Crack Down On Books

IPS Correspondents

COLOMBO, Mar 25 2008 (IPS) - Media freedom has hit a new low in Sri Lanka.

Advance copies of a book titled ‘Economy of the conflict in Sri Lanka: From embargo to repression’ by a respected Sri Lankan economist and researcher, Muttukrishna Sarvananthan, from his Washington-based publishers, East West Center, were withheld by customs vetting anti-government material.

After days of wrangling, the parcel of books was finally released to the author on Tuesday after Sarvananthan shot off a fax to the director-general of customs threatening legal action. The media and activist groups too put pressure.

“I was not aware that there was a policy of detaining books and no one at customs told me under which law it was kept back,” Sarvananthan told IPS before the books were released.

“The naive custom officers (including a director) did not know that this book is available online at the East-West Center website and for sale at amazon.com,” the economist said. “In the present information age there can be no effective censorship of any book, let alone an academic book.”

Sarvananthan’s is not the only book available on the net that was detained. A research book on information technology (IT) in Sri Lanka has not been released for almost two months.

The author, Rohan Samarajiva, has not been informed when his book, ICT Infrastructure in Emerging Asia, Policy and Regulatory Roadblocks, published by Sage India, will be released. Ironically, both books can be downloaded free on the internet.

Samarajiva thinks his book may have been held back because it was in the same consignment as another publication on the Sri Lankan conflict.

He wrote on the website of LIRNEasia, a regional ICT organisation, that launched his book: “The problem is that it came in the same shipment as a book by an English scholar teaching at the Colombo University which has the word militarisation in the title.”

Sri Lankan customs officials detain books that arrive in the post, and refer them to the defence ministry or the department of information for clearance.

“As far as I know they have no right, legal or moral, to censor books in a democratic society. I have evidence that this book censorship is occurring on a broader scale and is not limited to this single shipment from Sage India,” Samarajiva posting on the net said.

“Our book has nothing about the conflict, other than a single chapter that I co-authored on tele-use between the wars in the government areas of Jaffna. But if this goes on, I may be compelled to write a whole book on the destruction of civil liberties by people who don’t have a clue,” he warned.

Sarvananthan said he has complained to Rajiva Wijesinha, a professor who is secretary general of the Government Peace Secretariat.

An increasingly edgy government has been cracking down on media freedom in Sri Lanka. In the annual world ranking published by the Paris based Reporters without Borders the island now languishes at 141, a steep fall from 51 in 2002.

International media watchdogs have raised concerns over the new appointment of a retired army general to the state-run television, Rupavahini.

Last week, workers at Rupavahini, the country’s largest TV network, threatened strike action that could have crippled transmissions following a spate of attacks on employees. On Mar. 14, Anurasiri Hettige became the fifth employee to be attacked by unidentified assailants since end-December.

Rupavahini workers and media rights groups have linked the attacks to the storming of the station by government minister Mervyn Silva on Dec. 27. Silva was roughed up, his face coloured with paint by angry Rupavahini employees as he was escorted out under military protection

President Mahinda Rajapakse met with representatives from the Rupavahini workers’ unions and promised to bring an end to the assaults. Silva was also summoned to the meeting midway through the proceedings by the president.

However, soon after the conclusion of the meeting, a retired major general of the Sri Lankan army, Sunil Silva, was appointed to a senior administrative post at Rupavahini.

“A military leader in a state media group threatens the objectivity of journalists who are already struggling to independently confirm information about the combat between the government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam,” the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said in a letter to the Sri Lankan president over the weekend.

Susil Kindelpitiya, director, news at Sirasa, a private TV station, has warned the inspector general of police in a letter that Silva has threatened bodily harm to his staff. “Given the numerous past instances of public violent attacks against citizens and media institutions by minister Mervyn Silva, we are seriously concerned about threats to life and property of our (Sirasa’s) News First staff,” he said in the letter. Kindelpitiya too has warned Sirasa may be forced to take legal action.