Media Helping Media

The script that comprises this real life psycho-thriller begins with the birth of two national newspapers.

To read through the events that have, in effect, crippled Maubima and The Sunday Standard, is to read the screenplay of some violent and disturbing crime story.

The kind in which the 'psycho cases' are so blatantly warped, power hungry and wrapped up in their own temporary authority and importance, that they have lost all sense of law and order, right and wrong, and even propriety.

It is a script that begins almost with the birth of the newspapers. For following its launch in July 2006, the Maubima newspaper exposed a series of human rights violations in the north and east.

By August of that year, the government had begun to pressurise other media institutions to portray Maubima as sympathetic to the LTTE, Standard Newspapers (Pvt) Ltd, said.

The first major blow however was the arrest of Maubima journalist Parameshwari Munusamy by the Terrorism Investigation Division (TID).

Parameshwari, who wrote a series of investigative articles on gangs in white vans that kidnapped Tamil businessmen for ransom, has been held by the TID for 112 days without any charges being brought against her.

President's message

Adding insult to injury, President Mahinda Rajapakse, according to confidants, on December 2, 2006, had privately requested the editorial board of Maubima not to launch a campaign about the arrest of Parameshwari Munusamy.

On December 24, 2006, Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapakse, personally threatened Chairman, Sri Lanka Ports Authority for giving advertisements to Maubima, the newspaper alleged.

On November 12, 2006, Maubima reported that a lawsuit was going to be filed in the United States against the Defence Secretary, in relation to human rights violations. Shortly after, Rajapakse reportedly threatened to arrest the chairman, Sri Lanka Ports Authority and have him questioned by the Central Investigation Division (CID) for placing a paid advertisement in the newspaper.

On January 14 this year, Maubima published a political column titled, "Friends become enemies and enemies become friends," where serious irregularities in the privatisation of the Sri Lanka Insurance Corporation were exposed. Four days later, officers of the Inland Revenue Department raided the Maubima offices.

Raided

Thereafter Maubima publisher, Standard Newspapers (Private) Limited, together with its parent company CBE (Pvt.) Limited and Gateway International Schools were all raided by officers of the Inland Revenue Department. CBE and Standard Newspapers are owned by Tiran Alles, who also was a director of Gateway International Schools.

Push came to a very violent shove when on February 10, 2007, Editor in Chief, Maubima, Thilakaratne Kuruwita Bandara received death threats.

Bandara was warned he would be killed should he publish any articles against President Mahinda Rajapakse or his brothers Gotabhaya and Basil Rajapakse. He lodged a complaint at the Welikada Police Station on February 18, 2007.  To date no action has been taken to investigate this complaint.

While that remained stagnant however, things were heating up on the political front, with the dismissal of Ministers Mangala Samaraweera and Sripathi Sooriyaarachchi by President Rajapakse. Following this move the President convened an SLFP Executive Committee meeting on February 10, 2007.

Here again, much to the excitement of most media institutions which gave comprehensive coverage to the statements, Rajapakse severely criticised Maubima. The same day also saw the re-opening of a tax audit of Maubima's financial statements.

That same month, on February 22, the government ordered the impounding of the passports of Maubima Publisher, Dushyantha Basnayake and Tiran Alles.

Pressure on advertisers

The day after, on February 23, the newspaper alleged the President put pressure on and coerced several advertisers to pull their advertising from the paper.

On February 24, the day former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mangala Samaraweera held a political rally in his constituency in Matara, President Rajapakse and several senior ministers held a press conference where, yet again, articles in Maubima that exposed serious human rights violations were criticised.

Two days later, on February 26, Dushyantha Basnayake was arrested by the Terrorism Investigation Division (TID). To date, no charges have been filed against him.

This was rapidly followed, on March 5, by the raiding of CBE offices by the TID, who seized all financial documents and correspondence.

The day after, on March 6, the Telecommunication Regulatory Commission, under the President's directive, suspended the mobile phone connection distributorship for the north and east that had been awarded to CBE. This was the CBE's primary source of revenue.

By March 9, every bank that held an account of CBE or Gateway International Schools, had suspended those accounts, according to confidants of Alles.

They further stated that a harassment and intimidation campaign against CBE employees by the TID was ongoing.

On March 12 and 13, CBE employees, Sampath Serasinghe, Human Resources and Project Director, Mohan Welikala, Former Director of Sales, Nishantha Indrajith, Accountant Selvin Salley, and the Administration Manager were interrogated by the TID.

Bank accounts frozen

On March 13, amidst much protest by concerned parties, the newspaper alleged, all bank accounts belonging to the Maubima newspaper and Standard Newspapers (Pvt.) Limited had been frozen on the government's directives.

The very next day, the President met with Tiran Alles' father, renowned educationist R.I.T. Alles and his brother, and said the issue will blow over if the newspaper softens its stance and does not support the LTTE.

The President was no doubt feeling a tad guilty at moving against Gateway International because it is to this international school he sent his youngest son for extra tutoring courtesy the Alles family, just a few months back. Later due to security considerations, a request was made to send the tutors home to which too the Alles family agreed.

In a release on March 13, the Free Media Movement (FMM) condemned the move stating;

"This action by the government clearly shows a pattern of systematic intimidation and suppression of a newspaper which is not following the official line in reporting the conflict and corruption."

It also strongly censured the "intimidatory tactics" and urged the media community to rally around to defend the rights of the Maubima newspaper in particular, and against increasing autocratic tendencies in general.

Prominent human rights groups such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International also increasingly criticised the Mahinda Rajapakse regime for its actions.

Government action condemned

On March 14, Reporters without Borders, an organisation that stands for press freedom, issued a statement condemning the freezing of CBE's assets.

Following these protests Media Minister Anura Priyadarshana Yapa last Thursday denied the accounts had been frozen.

Nevertheless a letter sent to all ambassadors and heads of foreign missions by Maubima Editor Kuruwita Bandara and Sunday Standard Editor Hana Ibrahim dated March 14, cites the freezing of the Standard Newspapers Pvt. Ltd. accounts as an example of the continued bullying of the organisation by state authorities.

The letter stated:

"The war psychosis built up in the country during the past months is being unfairly utilised by governmental authorities to portray the anti-war position taken up by our newspapers as being pro-terrorist."

Appealing to the international community to take action, the letter highlighted that in Sri Lanka's history there has never been a frontal attack of such intensity on a mainstream newspaper.

This letter was evidently a last resort, as no amount of protest within the country by various individuals and organisations seem to have had any bearing on the President or government on ceasing to terrorise and hassle Maubima.

Guilty conscience

Having strangled the newspaper to the point of suffocation however, the government was shrewd enough to know that murder might be going a tad overboard.

A spokesman for the newspaper group told the Sunday Leader that Alles had been personally sent a message by President Rajapakse not to shut the Maubima newspaper down, but rather to let it live in a different guise: that is to change the editorial content.

Irrespective of the veracity of Maubima's content, the fact remains the newspaper had the right to say what it wanted. If the government felt the need to challenge anything, they could, and should have done so within the legal framework.

Unfortunately suppression and terror tactics are not, by any standards, new to Sri Lanka, or to its media.

The lesson here however is not so much that they exist, as that repression and aggression can always be taken to new, and more horrifying, heights.

This fact will be reflected in the Maubima today with all articles critical of the government withdrawn on a management directive due to family pressures.

And finally last Friday, on an application by the Financial Investigating Unit, the Attorney General filed action in the High Court of Colombo seeking an order to freeze the accounts of CBE, thus dealing a death blow to the newspaper.

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