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| Sunday, 18 July 2004 |
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Editorial |  |
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Please forward your comments to the
Editor, Sunday Observer. E-mail: [email protected] Snail mail : Sunday Observer, 35, D.R.Wijewardana Mawatha, Colombo, Sri Lanka. Telephone : 94 11 2429239 / 2331181 Fax : 94 11 2429230 In defence of media freedom The media continues to report disturbing news. They contain more and more attempts to curtail freedom of expression, particularly attempts to muzzle the media. Last week the police assaulted and wounded journalists who went to report on a protest funeral march at Kosgoda. A similar incident took place in Wattala when the police objected to media personnel reporting a protest against a casino. In both instances the police have not only obstructed the journalists from performing their duty by the people but have also intimidated them through use of force. This is not the first time such incidents took place. Unfortunately, it does not seem to be the last time too. The government must take firm action to discipline its police. It must also ensure that the police do not take into their hands powers that are not constitutionally assigned to them. Very often they have the backing of powerful politicos or moneybags in these irresponsible acts. It is not only the police who restrict the functioning of a free press. There are also powerful politicians and political forces that are interested in muzzling the press. Some are armed and have gone to the extent of killing media personnel whose opinion they disliked. As George Bernard Shaw said, assassination is the extreme form of censorship. This is what actually happened in the East a few weeks ago. These are ominous signs of suppression of dissent. If not nipped in the bud the consequences will be too dangerous to imagine. Media freedom is not a matter for the journalists alone. It is an essential prerequisite for ensuring the people's right to know. These physical attacks on the press were supplemented by a call for punitive action against the media that publish criticism of the judiciary. The call was made by none other than the President of the Bar Association of Sri Lanka, a body, which has fought many a battle in the past to defend freedom of expression, especially media freedom. That the judiciary in Sri Lanka is corruption-prone is common knowledge and the personal experience of many who were involved in litigation. Some time ago a majority of the respondents in a Marga Institute study expressed the opinion that the Judicial System in the country is not always fair and impartial, that it is susceptible to corruption and is slow and lethargic. Even 50 percent of the judges had felt that the judiciary as a whole does not deserve a high level of trust. Members of the Judiciary as well as members of the Bar had reported that they were aware of incidents of bribery. It would also be appropriate here to refer to the controversial act of giving bail to a remand suspect on a public holiday by a magistrate that attracted newspaper headlines a few months back. Even the Bar Association President would agree that the remedy is not to muzzle the press by punitive legal action but purposeful action to reform the judicial system. The judicial system should not be considered a sacrosanct institution that is beyond criticism. The public has a right to criticize it. If the system breeds miscreants, the remedy is to reform the system and not hang the newsmen. Are we too many? We are over six billion at present. By 2030 our numbers are expected to swell up to 8.3 billion. Already we have 777 million hungry people on earth, the majority in the Third World. The World Food Summit target set in 1966 to reduce by half the number of the poor remains a distant dream. It may not be fulfilled even by 2030. Over the past few decades we have been aggressively pursuing birth control policies under the presumption that the less numbers we have we could feed ourselves better. A little bit of introspection shows that these policies have failed to solve the problem of hunger. The cause of poverty does not seem to be in the growth of population, though its impact has to be acknowledged. Perhaps, good old Malthus led us up the garden path. He concluded 200 years ago that population grows in the Arithmetic Progression while food production increases in the Geometric Progression. Statistics now reveal Malthus was wrong. Food production has outstripped population growth, thanks to the development of technology. Annual global food production today is 24 percent higher than it was 40 years ago. Advancements in chemistry, biotechnology, genetics, agro-engineering etc. would further increase agricultural productivity. The real factor causing poverty lies elsewhere. It lies in the socio-economic conditions in the countries of the Third World and in their system of dependence on the Developed world through unequal trade. The extraction of surplus value from the Third World in the form of profits, dividends, loan installments and interests remains the principle cause of poverty in the Third world compared to affluence and abundance of food in the developed countries. Global poverty cannot be eradicated as long as exploitative relations of production dominate the world. |
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