Foreign Ministry in a futile attempt to cover up political blunder and media rights abuses

The Editorial Board of Maubima states that the press statement issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the arrest of Mr. Tiran Alles, owner of Maubima and Sunday Standard newspapers, was an attempt to cover up a political blunder and would further encourage country's human rights abuses. While condemning this particular statement issued by the Foreign Ministry on May 31, Maubima Editorial Board also states that this statement is in contempt of court.

In its statement, Maubima newspapers further states that the intention of the Foreign Ministry statement is to mislead international democratic forces who have spoken against the arrest of Mr. Alles by the Terrorist Investigation Department (TID) as well as other human rights abuses in the country.

 The Foreign Ministry has been engaged in a futile exercise to link the arrest of Mr. Alles with the previous arrests of the Financial Director of Maubima newspapers Mr. Dushyantha Basnayake and journalist Ms. M. Parameshwari. Police failed to submit any charges against Basnayake who was released on bail while Ms. Parameshwari too was released without any charges being brought against her.

 Mr. Basnayake was released after his lawyers filed a fundamental rights petition demanding Rs. 25 million as damages as well as a sum of Rs. 25,000 for everyday he was kept in prison. Defendants of this petition are Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapakse, Addition Secretary Sunil S. Sirisena, IGP Victor Perera, IP and TID Director Wakishta.

 As TID did not submit any charges against Mr. Basnayake after months of investigation, serious doubts have been cast on the allegations made in the Foreign Ministry statement.

The state media gave wide publicity to the arrest of Ms. Parameshwari on Nov. 23, 2006, saying that a female suicide bomber was taken into custody with a large quantity of explosives. She was kept in custody for four months. Finally, she was released on March 22, 2007 after the Attorney General informed the court that there were no charges against her.

However, the Foreign Ministry statement once again brands her as a terrorist activist, thereby insulting the country's judicial system which released her. The statement also violates Ms. Parameshwari's fundamental rights to seek protection from the law of land.

The Foreign Ministry statement states that the arrest of both Mr. Basnayake and Ms. Parameshwari were unrelated to their involvement in the field of media and mass communication. This is clearly a misleading and false statement. It is a well-known fact that Maubima had to face continuous harassment by the Government as its publications highlighted human rights abuses, corruption and other misdeeds. The Government even resorted to threatening the heads of advertising agencies that provide advertisements to Maubima and there were sudden investigations by income tax officers and the freezing of Maubima bank accounts. Besides this harassment, there were threatening statements made by the President and his brothers against Maubima through the state media from time to time while Mr. Alles was subjected to frequent questioning by the police.

 The arrest of Mr. Alles on May 30 was yet another move to suppress the Maubima newspapers and was aimed at sabotaging the efforts to recommence the operations of Maubima publications.

 Under these circumstances, the action by the Foreign Ministry to come forward to justify politically motivated attempts to violate media freedom in Sri Lanka is pathetic and the issuing of such a statement would further deteriorate the confidence of the international community in Sri Lanka.

On behalf of Maubima Newspapers,

Ruwan F. Guruge
Director - Editorial
2007 06 02