SL urged to stop censoring pro-Tiger Web site

Colombo, June 21: International press freedom group Reporters Without Borders has called on Sri Lanka's government to stop censoring a pro-Tamil Tiger Web site, local access to which has been blocked for days.

Sri Lanka's government and military today both denied they had ordered internet service providers to block www.tamilnet.com, which officials widely dismiss as an outlet for pro-rebel propaganda.

But Sri Lanka's leading mobile operator Dialog Telekom, a unit of Telekom Malaysia which also offers internet services, told sources late yesterday that it had blocked access to the site on the orders of the government.

''Tamilnet is a source of news and information that is known throughout the world and for the past 10 years its coverage of Sri Lanka's civil war has proved essential,'' Reporters Without Borders said in a statement issued overnight.

''The government must put a stop to this censorship and restore access to the site at once.'' The Web site's editor was murdered in 2005 in a killing the Tigers blamed on the government. He was one of six minority Tamil journalists and five other Tamil media workers killed since 2004, according to the island's Free Media Movement.

The site is also unavailable through state carrier Sri Lanka Telecom's Internet services, but Sri Lanka Telecom's Chief Corporate Officer P N E Abeysekara told sources the firm had not blocked Tamilnet and were investigating.

The government denied any wrongdoing.

''The government has nothing to do with this,'' Media Minister Anura Priyadarshana Yapa said. Another minister joked he wished he could hire some hackers to block Tamilnet.

The government gave no explantion for the conflicting version given by with Dialog Telekom, which is Sri Lanka's leading blue chip share and the most heavily-weighted stock on the Colombo Stock Exchange.

''We have blocked it as per a government directive,'' a Dialog spokesperson said, asking not to be named.

Reporters have been stopped from visiting Tiger-held areas since August 2006 for what the government says are security reasons, but one top official said was to avoid Tiger propaganda being spread.

The order to block the site comes amid a propaganda war raging parallel to a deadly new chapter in the island's two-decade civil war. Several Tamil language newspapers have been unable to print and distribute editions to majority Tamil areas in the north and east for months.

It also comes as the government comes under increasing pressure on human rights after it forcibly evicted hundreds of minority Tamils from the capital and amid reports of abductions and murders blamed on both security forces and the Tiger rebels.

REUTERS

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