Bid to brief media: Aussie NZ, politicians deported Sumanthiran accuses govt. of being paranoid
By Shamindra Ferdinando-November 10, 2013, 10:05 pm
The Department of Immigration and Emigration yesterday prevented two visiting parliamentarians from Australia and New Zealand from having a media briefing at the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) office, at No 32 A Retreat Road, Bambalapitiya, to discuss the situation in the Northern Province.
New Zealand Greens Party MP Jan Logie and Australian Senator Lee Rhiannon, also representing the Greens Party, were asked to leave the country. They arrived in Colombo following a tour of the Northern Province under the auspices of the TNA.
Sources based in Vavuniya told The Island that the visitors met representatives of the Illankai Tamil Arasu Kadchi, TELO, PLOTE and EPRLF.Talks centered on the government taking over land, disappearances, those in detention for long periods, war time atrocities and the post-Provincial Council situation, sources said.
Authoritative government sources told The Island that the MPs had been here on a mission funded by the UK based Tamil Diaspora.
"We believe the Global Tamil Forum was behind the latest propaganda project," a senior official said, accusing Logie and Rhiannon of pursuing an anti-Sri Lanka agenda for their personal gain. Their media briefing was meant to embarrass the government in the run-up to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) over the next weekend, the official said.
The Immigration and Emigration Department confiscated the two foreign politicians’ passports and moved to deport them. A senior official said they were here on tourist visas. Therefore, they had no right to engage the media.
TNA National List MP M.A. Sumanthiran told The Island that the MPs, during their visit to the Northern Province, had had an opportunity to discuss the situation on the ground with TNA representatives. Having closely examined the situation there, they had felt the need to brief the media before they left the country, attorney-at-law Sumanthiran said. "As they wanted space to meet the media in Colombo, we offered our office down Retreat Road, Bambalapitiya. The state-run media should have come there and challenged them. Instead, the government forced the MPs to cancel the briefing."
Sumanthiran said that there was absolutely no need to deport them as they were scheduled to leave the country yesterday. The MP urged the government not to suppress the media taking cover under various regulations. He accused the government of being paranoid in view of the presence of over 200 journalists from Commonwealth countries.
