Media ethics code – a path to censorship: UNP

By Dharisha Bastians

The Government’s new media ethics code is an indirect attempt to impose a censorship on the free media, the main Opposition United National Party charged yesterday. The UNP criticised the proposed code by the Media Ministry as being an effort to further stifle the freedom of expression in the country.

Addressing a media briefing, UNP General Secretary Tissa Attanayake said that the Government was claiming the ethics code was aimed at improving the media’s reportage of crime, but it was actually a way for the State to conceal critical issues in the country.

“It is one thing if the newspapers and media themselves control the way they report on certain crimes in order to safeguard victims but we see this as something more sinister than that. It’s a further attempt at stifling the peoples’ right to information,” Attanayake charged.

The UNP General Secretary said that the recent incident of a child being arrested and prosecuted for stealing coconuts in order to be able to find Rs. 800 to pay for the painting of her school was indicative of a broken education system and proof that the root of all crime in the country was crushing poverty.

 “All crime is ultimately about that – people just can’t survive under this economic burden,” Attanayake charged.

There was no point in the Government regretting things once they are done, he added. “Even the Rizana Nafeek case is all about the peoples’ struggle to survive, one way or the other,” Attanayake said, adding that the Government was shedding crocodile tears after the fact, instead of addressing the issues facing the country’s citizens.