Banned Press Conference Outside The Campus: Release The Student Leader – FUTA

July 11, 2013

The Vice Chancellor of the University of Colombo and the Registrar today tried to prevent  the Federation of University Teachers’ Associations (FUTA) from holding a press conference at the University of Colombo Faculty Club, by deploying the university security services and Marshalls who prevented journalists from entering the premises.  The UGC circular that banned the media from entering university premises during last year’s FUTA trade union action was repealed according to an agreement reached between the Ministry of Higher Education /UGC and the Federation as part of the FUTA’s suspension of their four month long strike. Hence, today’s actions by the University of Colombo authorities was unlawful. This is symptomatic of the increasingly undemocratic and intolerant cultures within universities.

However, the FUTA officials went ahead to address the media outside, near the gate of the Planetarium entrance to the University. The Federation expressed its disgust at the authorities’ treatment not only of the university teachers’ freedom to hold a press conference, but at the way in which the media was prevented from doing its job.  The President of FUTA, Dr. Nirmal Ranjith Dewasiri said in his statement  that the last weeks have seen a series o f incidents involving university students and that unprecedented numbers of students have been suspended from state universities.                   Read More