Her Excellency Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga
President
Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka
Presidential Secretariat
Colombo-1
Sri Lanka
Vienna, 6 September 2000
Your Excellency,
The International Press Institute (IPI), the global network of editors and media executives, strongly condemns the sentencing of Lasantha Wickrematunga on charges of criminal defamation.
On 5 September, Wickrematunga, editor of the English-language newspaper The Sunday Leader, was sentenced to two years imprisonment, suspended for five years, for criminally defaming Your Excellency. The charge of criminal defamation was laid against Wickrematunga in response to a September 1995 Sunday Leader article criticising Your Excellency for failing to carry out election promises. During the trial, state prosecutors argued that the article, titled “Promising Government”, insinuated that Your Excellency was corrupt.
In the opinion of IPI, the application of a two-year sentence, suspended for five years, is a callous attempt at extending the sentence beyond its original term and flies in the face of international standards of fairness and good legal practice. By applying a five year suspended sentence in the case of Wickrematunga, the Sri Lankan judiciary is using prohibitive sentencing powers to silence the media.
As a result of the sentencing policy decided upon in the High Court of Colombo, if a further criminal offence is committed within the next five years, Wickrematunga faces the possibility of serving the two year sentence as well as any sentence awarded for the subsequent offence. In addition, concerning the type of offence that may trigger the application of the original sentence, IPI fears that Wickrematunga may be imprisoned on the slightest pretence.
Regarding the extreme length of time between the commission of the alleged offence and the trial, IPI believes that five years is too long to wait for a legal decision on the matter. Indeed, IPI views the fact that Wickrematunga has had the prospect of the trial hanging over him for the last five years as intolerable. Based on the facts before IPI, the length of time between commission and trial is a form of “degrading treatment” in which potential prosecutions are retained in the hands of the government ready to be activated whenever the government feels it expedient.
Furthermore, IPI firmly believes that the use of criminal defamation is a clear violation of freedom of expression and is totally unwarranted in any democratic society. The media should not be stigmatised or punished for carrying out its duties. IPI would also remind Your Excellency that a democracy should view criticism as a form of open and honest debate in which the government has ample opportunity to put forward its own views and opinions.
The imposition of the sentence, suspended for five years, is effectively banning Wickrematunga from carrying out his legitimate profession of editor and is an attempt at exercising control over the reporting practices of The Sunday Leader. In effect, both Wickrematunga and The Sunday Leader have been sentenced to a five-year term of censorship without hope of reprieve.
In view of the above, IPI calls on Your Excellency to annul the sentence given to Wickrematunga, thereby affirming the right of the media to carry on with its legitimate role of reporting the news and expressing opinions.
I thank you for your attention.
Johann P. Fritz
Director
