Campaign for Free and Fair Elections (CaFFE) and Centre for Human Rights (CHR) issuing a statement today strongly condemned the attack on Lankaenews office in Malambe, which destroyed property worth up to fifteen million rupees.


The release states that this latest attack on media, right after the end of the Galle Literary Festival (GLF,) when the attention of the whole world is focused on Sri Lanka is not only a serious blow for media freedom and right to information but also damns the country’s international reputation.


We believe that Lankaenews played an important role in disseminating news items which were not used by main stream media for various reasons and they were unflinching in their belief of the right to information to the people, the organization stated.


“We assume that the main reason behind these attacks were the revelations and investigations carried out by Lankaenews. From looking at the damage done it is obvious that this was a well planned attack carried out to inflict maximum damage.” 


“The challenge before us now is to assure the safety of journalists who are working to disseminate information to the people. CaFFE and CHR also hope that Lankaenews will recover from this latest attempt to silence them as they have done after such previous attempts and urge the citizens who believe in democratic values to come forward and protect media institutions like Lankaenews” Director of CaFFE, Rajith Keerthi Tennakoon says.