Opinion: New style of media freedom:

How Britain took Guardian editor to task

By K.M.H.C.B. Kulatunga

Certain members of the British Parliament – the House of Commons, often discuss matters pertaining to Sri Lanka as if they don’t have any other domestic issues to discuss. If not, they must still be assuming that Sri Lanka is still a British colony or a County in the UK.

The rebuilt Kiniya bridge.

Buffels in operation against Tiger terrorists. (File photo)

Following Cameron’s undiplomatic remarks during the Commonwealth Summit, it has now become customary for the Britain make various statements on Sri Lanka at regular intervals. In its latest remark on Sri Lanka, the Britain has said that it would

continue to discuss on the situation in Sri Lanka, including human rights issues with a range of other European Union, Commonwealth and international partners over the coming months.

In response to a question by a British Parliamentarian, the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office Hugo Swire told British Parliament that, “The UK has been voted back on to the Human Rights Council and will play an active role in building international support ahead of the March Human Rights Council session. We will continue to discuss Sri Lanka with a range of other EU, Commonwealth and international partners over the coming months”.

He also said that Cameroon was clear that the UK “expect real progress on human rights, reconciliation, accountability, and political settlement. The Human Rights Council will assess progress in March.”

Crocodile tears

What perturbs us is the extraordinary hurry and concern shown by Cameron. Is it to satisfy the Tamil Diaspora and secure their votes ahead of the British parliamentary elections scheduled for 2015? This idea expressed by none other than Sri Lanka’s High Commissioner to the UK Dr. Chris Nonis could be the main reason that has prompted Britain to shed crocodile tears.

First and foremost, the Britain has no moral right to level war crimes allegations on Sri Lanka. If they really want to do that, they must first have a credible investigation to the countless number of human rights violations and war crimes committed by the British Forces in invading Sri Lanka.

It is well-known how the British Forces indiscriminately killed thousands of Sri Lankans in 1818. On the other hand, Britain does not practice what it preaches. They pontificate us on media freedom but take a different approach in dealing with British media. The most recent and classic example is the stunning disclosure by none other than the Editor of the Guardian newspaper.

Cameron used the CHOGM 2013 in Sri Lanka, to project him and his British regime as the paragon of virtue of media freedom among other sacred rights.

His style of media freedom was evident the manner in which he faced the final news conference in Colombo. A team of ‘exclusive’ media persons of his choice arrived at the press conference room with him and occupied the ‘reserved’ front row seats. Except for one local journalist of their choice, it was all these media favourites seated in reserved seats who had the fortune of asking questions from Cameron.

Explanations

Cameron got his governing coalition acolytes to do just the opposite: haul the widely read London-based newspaper The Guardian to the House of Commons for exercising its sacred right of media freedom.

The British Government appeared to be infuriated with the Guardian for publishing classified documents of USA's covert surveillance and eavesdropping of ‘activities’ in the ‘Global Theater’ provided by the former (US) National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden since June this year.

The British authorities called explanations from the Guardian for jeopardizing national security. The Guardian’s senior editor, Alan Rusbridger, was forced to appear before a parliamentary committee last Tuesday, to give explanation about the newspaper’s actions.

This follows the order by the British officials to destruct hard drives at the Guardian’s London headquarters. Even top ministers have taken to the airwaves to denounce the newspaper. Scotland Yard has also suggested it may be investigating the paper for possible breaches of British law.

It is still fresh in our minds the way some of the Western countries, including Britain, had preached us as the godfathers of media freedom when there had been an isolated incident in Sri Lanka. But the British Prime Minister seems to be having his own style of safeguarding media freedom.

Small but mighty

This was how the Washington Post wrote: “Living in self-imposed exile in Russia, former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden may be safely beyond the reach of Western powers. But dismayed by the continued airing of trans¬atlantic intelligence, British authorities are taking full aim at a messenger shedding light on his secret files here - the small but mighty Guardian newspaper”.

Unlike in the US, Britain has no enshrined constitutional right to free speech. But in the US, the freedom is guaranteed in the First Amendment to the constitution. But Britain which is supposed to be the ‘mother of all freedoms’, seems to be practicing its own style of media freedom.

The unethical actions of the British government against Guardian have led to growing concern in Britain and beyond. The UN special rapporteur on free expression, Frank La Rue, has denounced the Guardian’s treatment as “unacceptable in a democratic society.” The World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers, a Paris-based trade association, will send a delegation of “concerned” publishers and editors from five continents to London in January on a “UK press freedom mission.”

Under pressure

Over 70 leading human rights organizations in the world have written to Cameron to warn that the British government's reaction to the mass surveillance revealed by Edward Snowden is leading to an erosion of fundamental rights and freedoms in the UK.

Hauled before the British House of Commons to answer the allegation as to why The Guardian newspaper published US National security Agency classified surveillance and eavesdropping disclosed by Edward Snowden, Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger said his newspaper had been put under the kind of pressure to stop publishing stories that would have been inconceivable in other countries.

“They include prior restraint; they include a senior Whitehall official coming to see me to say: ‘There has been enough debate now'. They include asking for the destruction of our disks. They include MPs calling for the police to prosecute the editor. So there are things that are inconceivable in the US. I feel that some of this activity has been designed to intimidate the Guardian,” he said.

The Guardian has published a series of stories about the mass surveillance techniques of GCHQ and its US counterpart, the NSA, over the last six months; two of the most significant programs uncovered in the Snowden files were Prism, run by the NSA, and Tempora, which was set up by GCHQ. Between them, they allow the agencies to harvest, store and analyze data about millions of phone calls, emails and search-engine queries.

'Staggering' scale

As a result, the Guardian has come under intense pressure and intimidation designed to stop it from publishing stories of huge public interest that have revealed the “staggering” scale of Britain's and the USA’s secret surveillance programs, the editor-in-chief of the newspaper has said.

Rusbridger, giving evidence to a parliamentary committee about stories based on the National Security Agency leaks from the whistle-blower Edward Snowden, said the Guardian “would not be put off by intimidation, but nor are we going to behave recklessly”.

Rusbridger's answers referred to comments made to a parliamentary committee last month by the chiefs of Britain's three intelligence agencies – Sir Iain Lobban, the director of GCHQ, Andrew Parker, the director general of MI5, and Sir John Sawers, chief of MI6. The men had claimed that the Snowden revelations had damaged national security and that terrorists were likely rubbing their hands in glee.

Rusbridger said that it is important that the editors of the world's leading newspapers take virtually identical decisions. “This is not a rogue newspaper. It is serious newspapers that have long experience of dealing with national security,” he added.

Testimony

He told British MPs that disclosures from the files had generated a global debate about the powers of state agencies, and the weaknesses of the laws and oversight regimes they worked within. “In terms of the broader debate, I can't think of a story in recent times that has ricocheted around the world like this has and which has been more broadly debated in parliaments, in courts and amongst NGOs,” the Editor of the Guardian had said.

There is no doubt that the Guardian Editor's testimony before the House of Commons is an impeachment on Cameron's attitude toward media freedom in Great Britain. Instead of meddling with internal affairs of other sovereign states, Cameron must clear the garbage in his own backyard.

All these things have been said in good faith, while respecting Britain’s sovereignty as an independent nation. Similarly, Britain must also respect sovereignty and territorial integrity of all other independent states, irrespective of their extent or wealth.

As we have pointed out regularly, Sri Lanka needs true friends, not self-appointed arbitrators or judges.

It is better that the countries which tell all the things on earth to countries such as Sri Lanka practice what they preach.