Thursday, June 21, 2007

Sri Lanka blocks access to TamilNet


Looks like Sri Lankan government has ordered all the local Internet Service Providers to block access to TamilNet. The website has been inaccessible from Sri Lanka for the past five days or so. TamilNet has later confirmed its site was filtered by the country’s main Internet service provider SLT and others.

TamilNet is one of the most widely surfed news sources on the web. The website mainly covers news and views related to the conflict situation in the North-East of Sri Lanka. It’s a well-known fact that a large number of Sri Lankans across the globe visit this particular website on a daily basis. The site has often been accused of supporting the rebels at LTTE.

According to reports, local ISPs have been blocking access to the website on the government orders since 15 June, Even though no official statement has been made available to the public by the authorities. It also revealed that the blockage came just days after the 10th anniversary of TamilNet’s creation.

Everything seems to be banning these days, from Movies to Newspapers to Cable TV. The corrupted Sri Lankan government is now stepping into the Internet which should be freely available for any individual to speak their heart out. This is probably the first time Sri Lanka banned an online content. So what’s the purpose of blocking TamilNet? Banning an English language website is unacceptable. This is another stupid move by our so called country to mislead the public. This is violation of online freedom. I don’t have a wide knowledge when it comes to this type of issues. But I was under impression that this controversial government is now in the process of preventing citizens from accessing reliable information which are otherwise not covered by local mainstream media. Can even consider it as hiding the truth!! This is the latest attempt to keep the people in the dark. Remember last year, they illegally shut down cable TV operator CBNSat just because it reaches a wide audience….

Even though TamilNet has now being blocked from Sri Lanka, you can still access the site by using anonymous services and proxies. So there’s no need to worry about. I just had a visit. There are a couple of articles on TamilNet regarding the situation.

The TamilNet website is still fresh and updated. The only problem is you can’t have normal access from the footprints of Sri Lanka unless you are connected through a foreign or satellite based ISP.

Report by Free Media Movement

No comments: