Tamilnet banned in Sri Lanka

It seems what i guessed for the last few days is right. Tamilnet , the pro-LTTE web site is 'banned' in Sri Lanka. this was announced in Groundviews , and few other blog sites . it seems ,according to GroundViews , the government had requested all ISPs in Sri Lanka to block Tamilnet. if this is true , then this must be the first time a  website was banned in Sri Lanka.

 

Tamilnet is well know for its pseudo impartiality , and its strong anti-Sinhala / anti-GoSL stance. not only that they were quite anti-anything anti LTTE. all in all Tamilnet was the quasi virtual voice of the LTTE , being operational continuously since 1997. operating out of Norway the Tamilnet was notorious for not only biased reporting but also its twisted form of reporting incidents that relates to the conflict in Sri Lanka, claiming 'reporting Tamil affairs to the world' .

 

D.Sivaram or Taraki was the former Editor of Tamilnet until he was abducted and assassinated by Karuna Group in 2005. a well known LTTE sympathizer, fell victim to the breakaway group from Wanni LTTE , the Karuna group.

 

I guess this will be another major coup for the 'Civil Society' now and I'm quite certain Sunanda Deshapriya of FMM and the gang will hit the Lipton circus pretty soon, claiming 'another infringement to freedom of expression' . however, i do agree that the banning is somewhat curtaining of freedom of expression, as this ban will be effective only in SL, there can be alternative ways to access Tamilnet , thus government will lose out the intended outcome anyway.

 

This is the case in fact, as already Groundviews along with the announcement provides few options in reading the Tamilnet via other mirror sites. may be the government should look into closing them too. may be even GroundViews, so called space for citizen journalism. Groundviews is run by CPA and its nothing but a wanna be pro LTTE web , with a loose collection of former ,now bankrupt journalists from Ravaya and CPA, now running on USAID and other Western funds.

 

I don't agree on the Governments moves to ban websites, that freedom of expression and in this new century , this new form of society called the Internet the government needs to understand that , it too has to provide space for different views however subversive they may be. as the freedom of expression is one of the core distinctions that we differ from a society the LTTE intends to established with the power of gun , called Eelam , we need to uphold that freedom and have adequate mechanisms to address the ill effects of negative publicity on the society by such entities like the Tamilnet , not ban them outright.

 

The banning, if its true, is it based on the terrorist  content of the Tamilnet or is it a futile attempt to stop the Sri Lankan society reading some thing more countervail , such as the Mahinda Rajapaksha- V.Prabhakaran deal ?

 

Only time will answer that question.