What about the Freedom to know? Sri Lanka’s state radio boss switched off transmissions in rural areas
October 27, 2005Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation (SLBC) chairman Hudson Samarasinghe has ordered his engineers to switch off transmissions in strategically important areas to block the publicity campaign of Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, SLBC engineers have said.
The chairman has been accused by various sections of the SLBC of crippling Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa’s propaganda campaign through the government media. The engineers say the SLBC channels are not clear in rural areas after the chairman’s decision to switch off the transmissions and relay stations.
“In some relay stations, the antennas are not in correct directions,” an engineer told ColomboPage on condition of anonymity. He added that if the transmission and antennas in the rural areas are not in correct mode, the outstation’s entire broadcasting exercise would be a waste.
“The chairman’s objective is to block the few pro-government political programmes. At the moment, our rural listeners can not listen to SLBC any more,” an engineer added.
Trade unions are angry with chairman Samarasinghe for paralyzing Sri Lanka’s largest electronic media network and warned him with trade union action if he does not correct radio transmissions immediately.
Earlier, the SLBC news director also lodged a complaint against chairman Samarasinghe for assaulting him physically.
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