By
D.B.S.Jeyaraj
Four Thousand Copies of the prestigious US weekly news-magazine “Time” have been seized by the Sri Lankan Customs at the Colombo International Airport in Katunayake.
The seizure authorised by the Sri Lankan Government was executed by the Customs under the pretext that its cover story on Myanmar’s clashes could hurt religious sentiment in the country.
“We did not allow this issue to be distributed in Sri Lanka because we felt it could hurt the religious sentiments of the people,” said Customs department spokesman Leslie Gamini.
“Customs at the Bandaranaike international airport seized 4,000 copies of the Time magazine as its cover was carrying a statement which could have hurt religious sentiments,” he added.
The cover story by Hanna Beech on the July 1 issue of the magazine captioned ‘The Face of Buddhist Terror’ featuresBurma/ Myanmar’s monk A. Wirathu, who leads the 969 Buddhist Nationalist movement against the Muslims.
Sri Lanka, where tensions with Muslims and other minority religious communities have been rising, was the second country to censor the edition after Myanma or Burma.
Although the cover story had only two lines referring to Sri Lanka the “Time” was prohibited due to pressure by Buddhist extremists.
The lines about Sri Lanka in the article are excerpted below-
“This year in Sri Lanka, Buddhist nationalist groups with links to high-ranking officialdom have gained prominence, with monks helping orchestrate the destruction of Muslim and Christian property”
These lines irked Three Ethno Religious fascist organizations in Sri Lanka who raised objections about the magazine being distributed in Sri Lanka.
The three Buddhist extremist organizations were the Bodhu Bala Sena, Sinhala Ravaya and Ravana Balaya.
These organizations protested to both the Media ministry secretary Charitha Herath as well as the Defence and Urban Development ministry secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa.
These organizations had in their representations specifically pinpointed the reference to “with links to high-ranking officialdom”.
Consequent to these protests the Customs were ordered to seize the magazine .
DBS Jeyaraj can be reached at ~ dbsjeyaraj@yahoo.com