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Your Excellency, We write to bring to your notice a frontal attack on media freedom in this country, being carried out with the political patronage of those opposed to the right of free expression and dissemination of information to the general public. By way of introduction, we are the Standard Newspapers (Pvt) Ltd, publishers of the Sinhala weekly Maubima and the Sunday Standard. The management of Standard Newspapers has from the outset had a well defined editorial policy for both papers encompassing the views of all political parties that exist in Sri Lanka. We have given equal prominence to views and statements of prominent members of the UNP, SLFP, JVP and JHU, the mainstream political parties in the country, as well as other political groups. 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. Through this the government is attempting to silence the critical stance of the newspaper that has highlighted the human rights abuses taking place in the country. Maubima was the only Sinhala mainstream paper to publish photographs pertaining to the alleged killing of school children in Mullaitivu in August 2006. However, in presenting a balanced coverage, we also carried the government's stand, as well as the views expressed by UNICEF/SLMM and first hand accounts as revealed by the victims' themselves. We frequently reported the plight of civilian refugees who have had to leave their homes due to the escalating war situation in the east of the country. Through numerous articles we featured the plight of the population in Jaffna and the hardships people in both the north and the east have to undergo as a result of the conflicts that are taking place in their respective areas. We have also highlighted the atrocities committed by the LTTE and criticised their actions. In keeping with the editorial policy of unbiased, impartial coverage, we have also featured interviews with the members of the Karuna group and published a regular defence column carrying the government's official version of the military activities in the east. Mr. Tiran Alles who is a chief financial backer of Standard Newspapers was a close associate of His Excellency, the President and campaigned vigorously for his victory. After the presidential elections he was appointed chairman Airport & Aviation Ltd., which is fully owned by the Government of Sri Lanka. The government first made subtle overtures to Mr. Alles to change the editorial policy of its newspapers and when this did not have the desired effect, a more direct approach was used. On November 24, 2006 Parameshwari Munusamy, a Tamil female journalist who worked mainly as a translator for Maubima, was arrested, for allegedly being involved in helping a Tiger suicide cadre. Parameshwari wrote a series of articles on abductions and harassment of Tamil civilians and frequently met Tamil businessmen and ordinary Tamil citizens to collect evidence about the threats they received from state sponsored paramilitary groups. She also met the family members of Tamils who have gone missing in the south. She was arrested by STF (Special Task Force) soldiers and was detained at the TID Headquarters under the PTA. The detention did not alter the editorial policy of the newspaper group. On February 10, 2007, the President convened the executive committee of the ruling SLFP and made serious accusations against the Maubima. This was done soon after three cabinet ministers were stripped off their ministerial portfolios. The President openly stated that the Tigers were funding Maubima. He highlighted some articles that appeared in the newspaper to prove his point that the paper was doing propaganda work for the Tamil terrorists. Among the quoted articles there were two interviews published in the Maubima in 2006. One was an interview with the Sea Tiger Leader Col. Soosai and the other was an interview with Thamilini Subramaniyam, political leader of the LTTE Women's Wing. However both these articles had appeared much earlier in different publications. The first one appeared in Junior Vigadan a well-known South Indian magazine and the English version was published on the web. The second interview was originally published in the Sinhala newspaper of the LTTE some years back, focusing mainly on women's issues in the north east. Maubima reproduced this article in the women's section of the paper with an introduction about the background of the interview. Within 24 hours the tax inspectors from the Inland Revenue Department raided the newspaper office and took some files with them. On February 24, 2007, in a live TV broadcast President Rajapakse and his brother Gotabhaya Rajapakse (Defence Secretary) along with other government politicians, made an attack of unprecedented intensity on the Maubima newspaper and its owner Tiran Alles for criticising government policies.
Under government instructions all state and private TV channels were compelled to broadcast this attack on the Maubima.
On February 26 at 10 p.m. Sri Lanka time, officers from the Terrorist Investigation Division (TID) arrested Dushyantha Basnayake, a director of Standard Newspapers Private Limited in Colombo. The TID officers who arrived at around 6 p.m. (Sri Lanka time) had interrogated Mr. Basnayake at his office for nearly four hours, prior to taking him into custody. The arrest order had come from a top Defence Ministry official. Mr. Basnayake (40), a Sinhalese family man with two children, is well known within business circles in Sri Lanka. As even this did not succeed in forcing the newspapers to change editorial policy, the government has now taken direct steps to stop the publication of the newspapers. Firstly, pressure was put on advertisers to stop patronising the Maubima.
Then on March 8 and 9, the government froze the accounts of CBE, a reputed group of companies owned by Mr. Tiran Alles who happens to be the owner of Maubima. All the 12 accounts of the well established Gateway International School were sealed.
This educational establishment has a long history in Sri Lanka and has a permanent studentship of 300 from pre-grade to A-levels, as well as 20,000 students enrolled in computer courses all over the country. The patron of Gateway International School is the well respected educationalist Mr. R.I.T Alles who happens to be the father of Mr. Tiran Alles. It is quite outrageous that thousands of students and 500 teachers will face such hardship because of financial constraints imposed on the schools' through the freezing of accounts. On March 13, the accounts of the Standard Newspapers Private Ltd were sealed. This will effectively force both the Maubima and the Sunday Standard to stop publishing in the near future. In Sri Lanka's long and troubled history there has never been such a frontal attack of such intensity on a mainstream mass circulation newspaper. Actions taken by you at this moment will play a critical role in helping us carry out our role as disseminators of free expression in this country.
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