By Basil Fernando –

Basil Fernando

The evil eye of the Mahinda Rajapaksha regime is ever on the lookout for any avenue open for the freedom of expression. Throughout its period of power, killing journalists and every other form of harassment against them and publication institutions has been one of its hallmarks. The latest thing this evil eye has been cast on is the Colombo Telegraph, a web publication, which has contributed greatly to many Sri Lankans holding various shades of opinion expressing themselves. When the print media came under the evil gaze of this regime, many journalists had to flee their country.

Being in exile has now become quite a normal thing for those who refuse to allow themselves to be turned into stone.

When the print media was thus endangered, the creative people looked into modern communication technology as a substitute. It is to the credit of Sri Lankan genius that these publications were able to come forth as powerful media channels and thus provide news and views about what was taking place. Then came the attacks on the new media.

The problem is really that the government does not want their image to be portrayed as it is. They know that the image reflects the ugliness of the reality of the way governance is being conducted in Sri Lanka. The government is bent on destroying every real expression of what it is. It only wants falsified media and there is plenty of it in the state media.
Perseus found a way to sever the head of Medusa. The people’s creativity will always find ways to get over the evil that is destroying it. Sri Lanka will not be an exception to this rule.

Editor’s note;

We were unblocked from this morning after we managed to persuade that “since we are not financially motivated, we will re-activate our colombotelegraph.wordpress.com which the government cannot block and that we will also upload our full content to the Facebook.”

We take this opportunity to thank all our friends who called Sri Lankan government authorities regarding the block.