You compared children to butterflies in 2006

Fight with whom?

 According to a Reuter news report, the President Rajapakse who is on an official tour of Russia is to sign an agreement with Russia for the import of arms to SL to the value of Rs. 30 billion (US $ 300 million) on a loan, for the Armed Forces. During the war India, China, Pakistan and Russia helped SL in diverse ways to defeat the LTTE.

Assistance by way of weapons and strategies were immense. When the Reuter news Agency has inquired about this arms deal from the President’s office, they had been told that these arms are necessary because SL does not produce arms and weapons for the Forces.

 Following the end of the war in May 2009, after Gen Fonseka was appointed as the Chief of Defense staff he cancelled an Arms import order for US $ 200 million from Pakistan which was pending. This latest agreement is considered as the deal for the biggest quantity of arms to be ever imported to SL.

(Lanka-e-News, Feb.07, 2010, 5.20PM)

Namal, Vimukthi you must learn from Rahul

Media has reported that Namal and Vimukthi going to be contest at the upcoming general election. For them.

Lanka Guardian has reported that Rahul Gandhi has said”This is how we should oppose them. We should oppose them not by violence but by mobilising people,” he told student leaders during an unannounced brief visit here.Ignoring the protest by Shiv Sainiks, Gandhi had yesterday hopped onto Mumbai local trains abandoning his motorcade to make a last minute detour through the bastions of the Saffron outfit which had asked its cadres to greet him with black flags for opposing its “Mumbai for Marathis” campaign.

“India belongs to all Indians. If you are an Indian, you can live in any part of the country as you live in your state … whether you are a Keralite or Tamilian or Punjabi. It doesn’t matter,” Gandhi said. The Congress leader, who is trying to woo youth through interactions country-wide, stressed the need to strengthen student organisations by mobilising more workers.

“Sensitive Pregeeth?, Mahinda? Or us?”

Mr. Basil Fernando the executive director of the Asian Human Rights Commission has written that Pregeeth Ekanaliyagoda wrote several articles in LankaEnews in the months prior to the election on the 26th January. He tried to engage his readers in a discussion on issues which were part of the public debate on the forthcoming election. In November 2009 he wrote an article entitled, “Sarath? Mahinda? Or us?” In this article he tried to enter into the debate that was taking place at the time about the entrance of the retired general, Sarath Fonseka as a candidate for the election. By using the debate that was taking place at the time he tried to demonstrate that the issue was not really about the two prominent candidates which were the incumbent president, Mahinda Rajapakse and Sarath Fonseka. He tried to highlight that the election was about ‘us’, meaning the people. He tried to reason out that what is at stake for us, the people in the election and the best ways of serving the interests of the people through the election. He tried to raise the discussion on the presidential election beyond personalities and into the issues that should concern the people.

We as ordinary citizens of this country condemn the disapprance of this journalist. It is a shame to everyone who identifies themselves as sensetive people or leaders. Today this has happened to Pregeeth But tomorrow ? Sometimes victim may be a blogger.

Pregeeth belongs to his family, to us and the entire world. We must take this issue as ours not as anybody. If  we remain silent then it will be a blow to the democracy and the younger generation which we have promised a beautiful future.

Mourn

 manika

High hopes on justice

We can see a silver line in a dark cloud. This is an occasion a long term wish of the ordinary people in this country fulfilled.

Lanka Truth has reported in upholding the citizens’ right to information, Gangodawila Magistrate overturned the temporary ban imposed on Lanka newspaper, when the hearing came up before him today (01).

What a welcome decision.

Some hope !

Daily Mirror has reported President Mahinda Rajapaksa has revoked a decision to cancel the visa of a Swiss journalist who is in Sri Lanka to cover the Presidential elections. The journalist of a Swiss radio station was earlier ordered to leave by tomorrow, the government information department said.

According to Lankaenews Karin Wenger of the Swiss public radio station DRS is facing possible deportation on 1 February following the withdrawal of her press accreditation. “I had a visa and accreditation that were valid for the election,” she told Reporters Without Borders. “I think this decision is linked to the questions I asked an official during a news conference after the results were announced.” A presidential adviser referred to her insultingly as a “white face.”

Good things must be appreciated while bad must be condemned. We are happy if supression against the other local media will remove. This same thing will happen to Chandana Sirimalwatta and Prageen Eknaligoda.

Rupavahini turns Maravahini

This is sad and sad. Rupavahini is not an independent media. But there are independent and impartial employees in it. I remembered how they reacted to big thugs like Merven in an earlier occassion.

Lanka Truth has reported that a massive suppression of employees is taking place at Sri Lanka Rupavahini Corporation. According to these reports the Chairman and the Addl. Director General have threatened employees who harbour different political views and have assaulted some of them.

 The Chairman and the Addl. Director General have personally threatened Ravi Abeywickrema, Herbert Kumara alagiyawanna, Kanchana Marasinghe and Gamini Pushpakumara.  

Political reporter and cartoonist missing in Colombo on eve of election

Reporters Without Borders urges the security forces to assign more
personnel to the search for journalist Prageeth Eknaligoda, who sent
missing last night in Colombo. A senior police official told the
press freedom organisation he was too busy with tomorrow’s
presidential election to make the case a priority.

Eknaligoda, who writes political analyses for the Lankaenews website,
left work at about 9 p.m. but did not arrive home and has not
contacted any family members or friends. He had told a close friend
he thought he had been followed for the past few days.

“Given the current political tension, it is extremely worrying that
journalist known for criticising the government should disappear in
the capital,” Reporters Without Borders said. “With rumours of
premeditated violence against journalists circulating, we expect a
rapid response from the authorities designed to find Eknaligoda safe
and sound.”

Eknaligoda’s wife told Reporters Without Borders she reported his
disappearance to police stations in the Homagama and Rajagirirya-
Welikada districts of the capital, and police officers took her
statement.

A fellow journalist told Reporters Without Borders that Eknaligoda
had been threatened because of his political analyses: “Last week he
wrote a long comparative analysis of the two main candidates for the
presidential election that was published in Sinhalese on the
Lankaenews site. He sided with the opposition. We fear that his
disappearance is linked to that article.”

Eknaligoda, who works for the newspaper Sirata as well as Lankaenews
and is also well-known as a cartoonist, was previously kidnapped for
a few hours on 3 August.

Yesterday’s disappearance comes one day after the leading opposition
candidate, General Sarath Fonseka, accused the government of planning
violence in order to scare voters.

Other journalists have been kidnapped in recent years. Poddala
Jayantha, the secretary-general of the Sri Lanka Working Journalists
Association, was kidnapped on a Colombo street in June of last year,
tortured and then dumped on the side of a road. Radio Sooriyan news
editor Nadarajah Kuruparan was kidnapped for 20 hours in Colombo in
August 2006. Dharmeratnam “Taraki” Sivaram, editor of the Tamilnet
news website and columnist for the Colombo-based Daily Mirror, was
kidnapped and then murdered in April 2005.
———— —-
Vincent Brossel
Asia-Pacific Desk
Reporters Without Borders
33 1 44 83 84 70
asia@rsf.org

Poya Day man will launch vote rigging

Lanka Truth has reported a group of people gathered at a house belonging to Member of Western PC Thilange Sumathipala at Jawatta Road in Colombo yesterday (24^th) night has discussed regarding launching a vote rigging operation within Colombo city. According to sources they have discussed to rig votes at centers that are advantageous to the opposition candidate or pour ink into ballot boxes and get the voting cancelled in such centeres.

He made history by gaining bail on a poya day. All who engaged in this illegal act( judiciary)  and rleased a criminal must pay the bill of vote rigging on 26th- Heta.