Minister threatens to burn newspaper's offices

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 18 February 1998, 23:59 GMT]
M.H.M Ashraff, Sri Lanka's powerful Minister of Ports, Shipping and Rehabilitation, threatened to burn the state run Tamil daily newspaper Thinakaran and demanded that the Parliamentary passes issued to its lobby correspondents be withdrawn forthwith in an outburst in the Sri Lankan Parliament today.

He accused the paper of working against his party, the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress, and of deliberately ignoring his speeches in Parliament, particularly during its last sitting.

He spoke threateningly towards the press gallery where the Thinakaran lobby correspondents A.M Pillai and S. Asok Kumar were seated, said journalists who were present there today.

There was an immediate protest by journalists in Parliament today over the Minister's attack on the Thinakaran.

The minister was angry, according to sources in Parliament, that the Thinakaran had given precedence to a speech of Minister of Transport and Highways Mr. A.H.M Fowzie while ignoring what he had said in Parliament during the same session.