South Asia Citizens Web

We, at the Peoples’ SAARC, a parallel process to the official SAARC aimed at presenting the South Asian civil societies’ collective voices on pressing regional issues, have convened a series of country processes to evolve consensus on the future direction of the SAARC, and consolidated the outcomes of these country initiatives into this regional Civil Society Memorandum which is submitted today to the official 17th SAARC Summit for its urgent consideration.

We, the participants of the People’s SAARC India Assembly 2011 met in Thiruvanathapuram on 8-9 November 2011 to affirm our commitment to justice, peace and democracy in the region. We also affirm and commit ourselves to the vision of an alternative political, social, economic and cultural system that enables social and sustainable development in the region that will do away with discriminations based on gender, caste, religion, language and ethnicity . . .

Some sections of the Press have misquoted M. Pushparayan, a member of our Struggle Committee, as saying: "If she (Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu) is satisfied and advises us on that point we have no problem on allowing work to restart at the first unit." Pushparayan and the People’s Movement Against Nuclear Energy (PMANE) categorically deny having made such a statement as we want the KKNPP project to be scrapped completely.

We the undersigned civil society organisations and individuals express grave concern over the press release issued by the Director General of the Department of Government Information on 5th November 2011, which requires all ‘websites carrying any content relating to Sri Lanka or the people of Sri Lanka… uploaded from Sri Lanka or elsewhere’ to ‘register’ for ‘accreditation.’ We also condemn the actions of the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (TRC) that has, according to a Sunday Times news report, moved to block a number of specific websites in line with this. While it is unclear whether the two measures are part of a single initiative or not, they represent an unacceptable incursion into free expression in Sri Lanka.

Media-persons and media organizations critical of the government continue to be at the receiving end of threats and abuse. The recent decision of the ministry of mass media and information to block no less than five websites cannot but be read as part of this established practice.