Sri Lankan Minister Nimal Siripala De Silva has called for the banning or “reforming” of social media platforms including Facebook in parliament today.
In his address, he drew upon China’s as a model for Sri Lanka highlighting those social media platforms are prohibited from operating in China.
Whilst the Minister has claimed that this was in the interest of preventing child abuse, it follows calls from Justice Minister Ali Sabry to introduce regulations on social media to allegedly target “fake news”.
Sabry stated:
There must be limits on the freedoms that could be exercised and maintained that restrictions on speech should be in place with respect to “national security, reconciliation and development, refraining from destroying the name of the country and defaming individuals”.
The measure comes as the European Union parliament and the United Nations have warned Sri Lanka against the increase “surveillance and intimidation of members of civil society and human rights defenders” and targeting of Tamils and Muslims.
The recently passed resolution by the EU urged Sri Lanka to “refrain from using allegations of “terrorist financing” to deny civil society organizations access to legitimate sources of funding”. The resolution follows a wide-reaching prohibition of several Tamil diaspora and Muslim organisations, as well as hundreds of individuals, which were dedicated to campaigning for human rights.
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