Facebook icon
Twitter icon
e-mail icon

Sri Lankan govt body rejects Right to Information request on blocking of news website

A Sri Lankan government body has rejected a Right to Information request questioning why a news website was blocked in Sri Lanka.

Access to London-based news website lankaenews.com, which had been critical of the Sri Lankan government, was blocked from Sri Lanka last month.

Tamil-language media organisation Maattram submitted a Right to Information request asking whether the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission of Sri Lanka had indeed blocked access to the website and if so, why it had been blocked.

The regulatory commission responded this week with a denial of the request, saying the questions could not be answered for national security reasons.

When Maattram was submitting the request, TRCSL had initially attempted to reject it in its Tamil form, stating the commission only had the capacity to accept requests in Sinhala or English.

We need your support

Sri Lanka is one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a journalist. Tamil journalists are particularly at threat, with at least 41 media workers known to have been killed by the Sri Lankan state or its paramilitaries during and after the armed conflict.

Despite the risks, our team on the ground remain committed to providing detailed and accurate reporting of developments in the Tamil homeland, across the island and around the world, as well as providing expert analysis and insight from the Tamil point of view

We need your support in keeping our journalism going. Support our work today.

For more ways to donate visit https://donate.tamilguardian.com.