3RD LEAD

SL military issues threatening circular to NGOs assisting Tamil journalists

[TamilNet, Monday, 07 July 2014, 14:59 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lankan military, which recently interfered in cancelling the workshops organised for the journalists from the North and East, has now sent a threatening circular to all Non Governmental Organizations instructing them to put an immediate end to the practices of “press conferences, training for journalists and dissemination of press releases which is beyond their mandate.” Colombo’s genocidal military, which is preoccupied with sustaining the gagged condition in the occupied country of Eezham Tamils, is strongly opposed to any attempt to empower the journalists in the North and East. The SL military is also targeting to destablize the civil and political groups that help people to democratically mobilise against the structural genocide.



“It has been revealed that certain Non Governmental Organizations conduct press conferences, workshops, training for journalists and dissemination of press releases which is beyond their mandate. We reiterate that all Non Governmental Organizations should prevent from such unauthorised activities with immediate effect,” said the circular issued by D.M.S Dissanayake, the Director/Registrar at the SL Ministry of Defence and Urban Development, which is run by SL presidential sibling Gotabhaya Rajapaksa.

Transparency International Sri Lanka (TISL) organised a series of workshops on the topic of investigative journalism in May this year. The SL military intelligence directly intervened in suspending a workshop in Polonnaruwa on 22 May and on 06 June the SL military intelligence organised a protest against the workshop at Negombo.

SL presidential sibling Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, a US citizen who is regularly in touch with the US military Establishment, is opposed to certain NGO programmes being funded by the USAID agency since he views these programmes as strengthening the ‘Regime Change’ line of thought running against the ‘military-to-military’ nexus between the Pentagon and Colombo's genocidal military.

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