No Response From Daily News Editor

January 30, 2014 |

Four days after Colombo Telegraph challenged Rajapaksa state media Daily News Editor Rajpal Abeynayaketo name the online publication he attacked in disparaging language in an editorial entitled CESSPIT DESPERADOES DISTORT DN COMMENT, there has been no response.

Rajpal

Colombo Telegraph promised to take the necessary steps to address his concerns if the Editor of the Daily News names the website he makes reference to and sends the clarification he wishes. “We ask only that he refrains from making defamatory remarks that he is unable to substantiate and engages in a constructive and civilised manner. This is after all, not the Ceylon Daily News,” Colombo Telegraph said in its challenge.

For reasons best known to himself, the Daily News Editor has chosen to refuse to name those he criticised in foul language of having distorted his editorial comment.

Related story;

CT Challenges State Run Daily News Editor To Reveal Name Of Website In Smear Editorial

Rajapaksa State Media Defends Attack On Churches; Alleges Genocide Against Sinhalese

Sajith A No-Show At Anti-Government Rally

January 30, 2014

The UNP Rebel in Chief Sajith Premadasa failed to make an appearance at a major anti-Government rally attended by the combined opposition and several trade unions and civil society organisations on Tuesday, making himself increasingly irrelevant in his effort to snub measures to change the leadership structure in the party.

Sajith Premadasa

Tuesday’s rally was the first in several years to have garnered such enthusiasm and was joined by several different groups protesting about different types of oppression in the country. The rallies were organised to raise a voice against the executive presidential system, the suppression of the free press and the degradation of society as a result of Government corruption and its patronage of drug lords. Different opposition parties and groups marched in Colombo and converged at Hyde Park for the rally. The main opposition UNP was instrumental in organising the demonstration, that took a cross party approach.

Premadasa who recently declined an appointment to the UNP Nomination Board for the Western and Southern Provincial Council polls, months after he refused to sit as a member of the party’s new leadership council, has successfully sidelined himself just as the UNP begins to show signs of life.

Tuesday’s rally was heavily monitored by the state intelligence and police services because it alluded to the impending forging of an alliance among different opposition groups to battle the Rajapaksa administration.

Premadasa’s rebel UNP faction has long since been accused by critics as playing into the hands of the Government and working according to the regime’s agenda.