Article 19 Slams Ban On Colombo Telegraph Website
March 8, 2014
Freedom of expression watchdogs Article 19 has strongly criticised the Sri Lankan Government for its continued censorship of the Colombo Telegraph website in the country.
Article 19′s Executive Director Thomas Hughes
Article 19′s Executive Director Thomas Hughes said the blocking of the Colombo Telegraph website in Sri Lanka was “deeply concerning”.
“Silencing of onling news media, such as the Colombo Telegraph, deprives the public of an invaluable independent voice on issues of key public interest,” Hughes said.
Colombo Telegraph is being blocked by all internet service providers and mobile networks – private and state owned – in Sri Lanka.
Readers are strongly advised to change the DNS settings on their computer to Google Public DNS by following the instructions provided here: http://www.thewindowsclub.com/how-to-change-dns-settings-in-windows-7-vista
Readers can also utilise this one click link to access Colombo Telegraph: http://j.mp/ColoTele
More Of The Same!
Emil van der Poorten
Brush fire on the hillside in middle distance
A short while back I chronicled what poor rural folk had to undergo in their pursuit of an honest living. The central thrust of that piece was the fact that, in the absence of anything resembling the rule of law, misery is the lot of the less powerful in this land through absolutely no fault of theirs.
Shortly after those shenanigans we were treated to pyrotechnics of a natural kind when several “fire-bugs” in our neighbourhood decided to test the combustibility of vegetation that is still suffering under unusually severe drought conditions.
The photographs that accompany this piece (if the editor finds them adequate for reproduction) hardly show the extent and ferocity of the fires that consumed our hillsides at several points of the compass that evening.
It all began a little before sunset and got steadily worse. The good news is that there was no loss of life. However, the economic loss, even given the fact that most of the land around here is, to all intents and purposes, fallow thanks to the hang-over from the late Hector Kobbekaduwa’s attempt to extract revenge in the name of “land reform.” However, one pyromaniac’s efforts were rewarded by a neighbour’s rubber trees having the bark “boiled” off them, as one of the rubber-tappers described it to me. Read More
