Based on the editorial published in the Derana newspaper on 19-11-2025 titled “Grama Niladhari certificate not enough, approval of the People’s Committee Head is also required to obtain police reports”, we express the disgust of the Professional Journalists Association of Sri Lanka to the government regarding the summoning of the newspaper’s Editor-in-Chief Mahinda Ileperuma to the Criminal Investigation Department on 24-11-2025 for an investigation.
This is a situation that no party fighting for media freedom and the rights of journalists can dismiss as an isolated incident. We are concerned that this incident occurred at a time when the fourteen months of the Malima government are being added to the dark past of journalists who have been disappeared, murdered, repressed, assaulted and tortured, and have not been properly investigated or brought to justice.
The fact that the government has summoned the editor of the newspaper to the Criminal Investigation Department, without even considering the minimum ethics that can be applied to a news item published in a newspaper, clearly projects the government’s desire to suppress the media, which it has no control over.
Therefore, the continuation of the media suppression orders brought by various governments to suppress the media, without repealing them, also demonstrates the current government’s desire to do so.
We believe that the current government will not hesitate to unleash this repression on the media in Sri Lanka on the entire people of the country, so the Sri Lanka Professional Journalists Association, which values freedom of speech and expression, urges all responsible parties to unite to defeat this attempt to suppress the media at this time.
We also further urge the current Malima government to immediately stop this media repression and steer its state administration in a way that values dissent and does not hinder media freedom.
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A reader who left a comment on this said, “That newspaper report is correct. I had requested a police report, but the police in our area called me and said they wanted a committee report, but I have not yet been given the police report.”
(English translation of the Sinhala language press release issued by the SLWJA by SLB)