by Melani Manel Perera

Free Media Movement raises the alarm on the eve of World Press Freedom Day. In a press release it documents the alarming the situation on the island nation, the worse ever. Government and rebels are equally responsible for this deterioration.

Colombo (AsiaNews) – There is press freedom in a country like Sri Lanka which is at war with itself, this according to the Free Media Movement (FMM) on the eve of World Press Freedom Day on 3 May. In a press release the association said that never before has it been so dangerous to be a journalist in Sri Lanka as now.

Both parties to the conflict (government and Tamil Tiger rebels) threaten freedom of expression and with verbal and physical aggressions.

The “significant deterioration of media freedom and the freedom of expression is a marker of an inexorable erosion of democratic governance” so much so that “free media is under unprecedented siege”.

In coincidence with tomorrow’s event the FMM has released more information about the situation of the media in Sri Lanka.

Between May 2007 and May 2008 two journalists were killed and two abducted. The FMM documented more than 10 violations of freedom of expression, 63 incidents in which media and journalists were threatened; 15 journalists and media workers were arrested and more than 25 have had to leave their home and some even the country.

Various cases of censorship have also been recorded. Three state media officials were removed from their posts without explanations; a website was blocked and another was forced to shut down without any obvious reason; and five radio stations were forced to interrupt their broadcast.

For the FMM some politicians have expressed unprecedented levels of hatred of journalists on state media.

For tomorrow the Free Media Movement has called on the government and the Tigers to “Immediately halt all threats, harassment, abductions and attacks against media practitioners and outlets currently being perpetrated by all parties to the conflict; undertake complete, transparent and timely investigations into the murder of media practitioners and death threats issued against media practitioners and their families; halt the dangerous and irresponsible practice of publicly vilifying media practitioners.”

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