Lawyers for Democracy condemn the harassment of Lakbima Editor
Saturday, 26 April 2014 00:58
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Lawyers for Democracy (LfD) has condemned the harassment of the Editor of Lakbima Newspaper, Saman Wagaarachchi by calling him to appear before the CID for questioning for the mere reasons that the caption to a photograph published in the paper has caused embarrassment to a party.
“While conceding that it may have coursed embarrassment, we are surprised that the Editor is called for questioning by the CID after the paper has voluntarily, the very next day, publicly apologised for any embarrassment caused to the person in question,” LfD said in a statement.
“It is a revelation of the situation in the country today. The Editor of a newspaper is called before the CID on a trivial matter while serious cases of violations of fundamental rights and attack on civilians in violation of the Rule of Law passes by without at least a comment from those in power. We condemn this move as it is in our view another incident of intimidation of the media to suppress the freedom of expression and to hold the media by its throat.
We call upon the authorities concerned to stop these harassments of media personnel and Lawyers for Democracy will be calling a meeting of all civil society groups to protest against this threat to media freedom,” the statement said.
