June 07, Colombo: Sri Lanka's Defence Ministry has recently formulated guidelines for media on war news coverage in the form of an advisory that is posted on its website, www.defence.lk, under the heading, "Deriding the war heroes for a living exposes the ugly face of 'defence analysts' in Sri Lanka".
The guidelines address four main issues the Defence Ministry is most concerned over. Criticism of military operations, promotion schemes, procurement and unethical methods used to obtain sensitive information are the issues of main concern and they are classified as acts of „treason". During the past several months the relations between sections of the media and the government of Sri Lanka have been stressed on issues related to the war coverage.
The abductions and threats on defence journalists and editors in the recent weeks have escalated the tensions between the defence authorities and media. The Free Media Movement (FMM) and the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) yesterday called on the government to stop the „hate campaign" against the journalists.
Recently Sri Lankan defence authorities have increasingly criticized media outlets over their reports on war in the North against the Tamil Tigers saying they are often inaccurate, unfair and undermine the morale of troops. The government has accused the media of revealing unnecessary details about the war that could help the enemy and the reporters of making statements that they are not qualified to make.
The advisory identified „whoever attempts to reduce the public support to the military by making false allegations and directing baseless criticism at armed forces personnel" as a traitor and a supporter of the „terrorist organization that continuously murder citizens of Sri Lanka." "The Ministry will continue to expose these traitors and their sinister motives and does not consider such exposure as a threat to media freedom," it said.
do góry