Tamilnet, blocked by the Government and all major commercial ISPs in Sri Lanka earlier this year, is now accessible through SLT’s ADSL (Broadband) connections (last checked 19th December 2007, 6:30PM local time).
The website was the first in Sri Lanka to be blocked, with the Government openly stating that it was searching for hackers to bring it down. Article XIX’s statement on the ban clearly pointed to the negative fallout of what was a ill-informed decision:
ARTICLE 19 views this move as a clear breach of the right to freedom of expression. We are particularly concerned that this may signal a move by the government to add Internet censorship to its already considerable control over the media. We also note that attempting to curtail access to alternative views can only perpetuate the conflict and undermine efforts at conflict resolution.
Though the site was accessible through web proxy and other means, the decision to unblock it seems as arbitrary as the decision to close off access to it in the first place.
Filed under: ICTs and other stuff , Censorship, Freedom of Expression, Media Freedom, Tamilnet
[...] Tamilnet has been inaccesible over any wired or wireless Internet connection from all ISPs in Sri Lanka since June 2007, though it briefly came back online in December 2007. [...]