fmm with a false claim of internet blocking dupes lirne asia, groundviews, and others.

free media movement (fmm) issued a statement yesterday(30th) alleging that "basic communications facilities to the jaffna peninsula have been blocked". in spite of this sweeping claim, specifics in the statement indicates that this alleged block seem to consist only of "dysfunction" of slt telephones and some sort of unexplained disconnection of "internet facilities".

this is a false claim.

anyone can check its falseness. pick a telephone and dial a jaffna number. it will work. ask them to call back. it will still work. (i called several people i know, all of them worked. none of them were aware that there was any block. if you do not know anyone call a commercial establishment picked from directory). if telephones work dial up internet connections will work. (jaffna does not have adsl). btw another false claim in fmm statement is that slt is the only internet service provider in jaffna. in fact if you have an account with any dial up isp you can call their number and connect.

in addition slt in the form of their inquiries line also deny that there is any such block, and point out that phones are in fact working.

given that fmm and its convener sunanda deshapriya has repeatedly shown a tendency to accept terrorist propaganda at face value and have never protested against suppression of freedom of expression in terrorist controlled areas, in spite of his movement's claim to stand for media freedom, this kind of false statement is to be expected. (he like all peaceniks seem to believe that peace is worth any cost even loss of freedom of expression).

dupes
fmm statement was published in that new peacenik blog the groundviews and the poster there showing typical lack of logical ability drew the unwarranted conclusion "600,000 people today in Jaffna are denied the right to communicate with their fellow citizens and the rest of the world." just as typically one of my comments pointing out the problems in claims made in the statement and the post, posted more than 12 hours ago, never appeared ( comments posted today morning were published. their claim that my first comment was queued is false bc later comments by others were published while mine wasn't.) as everyone knows all censorship is arbitrary and stupid. groundview is a good example.

lirne asia blog also published the fmm statement (without any additional commentary). this is generally a more trustworthy blog but the good professor there should have checked the facts before lending his blog to propagating false claims. it was his duty but unfortunately he chose not to. see his comment there. pity.

well fmm can be satisfied that they fooled two blogs at least,.. for a short time.

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my thoughts on real internet censorship can be found here .

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update

fmm replied to my comments in both blog threads referred but persist with the false claim of blocking.

i give below a summary about this i posted as a comment in both threads afterwards though i fear groundview blog will censor it like two other comments ( in addition to first one referred above) i posted there .

to summarize, following were observable about the claims made in fmm statement and the groundview post

1/ there wasn't any any large scale ( or even small scale) blocking of slt telephones in jaffna as claimed by fmm . a simple check of dialing a jaffna number and asking them to dial back will verify this, even for telephone numbers later put forward by fmm

2/ there wasn't any 'internet blocking', in fact what fmm meant by this term is still a mystery. since internet in jaffna means dial up, jaffna users using slt lines had only to dial up any isp to connect as usual. ( same as anybody else using dial up in sri lanka).

3/ slt is not the only isp in jaffna as claimed by fmm. if a phone has a dial tone the user can connect to any isp.

4/ slt deny allegations of any blocking of telephones or internet, as anyone can verify by calling slt. fmm is reduced to hiding behind an unverifiable 'unofficial' confirmation.

5/ no other respectable media outlet local or foreign has independently reported about such a block as claimed by fmm even though it was supposedly 3 days old. may be the fact that there was no such block has a lot to do with such non reporting.

6/ fmm forgets to note that mobiles, other fixed lines etc in jaffna were working perfectly as well during those three days.

7/ to claim "basic communications facilities to the Jaffna Peninsula have been blocked" as fmm did, just bc ltte propagandists claimed so, without checking facts is a deliberate falsehood unworthy of any self respecting journalist.

8/ groundview poster's claim that "Either way, 600,000 people today in Jaffna are denied the right to communicate with their fellow citizens and the rest of the world" is a worse falsehood.

update posted on 02/04/2007 at 10 pm

on 04th ( seven days after the alleged blocking) a news item did appear in respectable media about this. see the sunday times ( thanks to indi for letting me know in the thread).

however only confirmation it could offer was from an unverifiable unofficial one from "a senior officer of Sri Lanka Telecom Jaffna branch" who says it was a "defence decision". slt itself still deny any such blocking as anyone can verify by calling them.

national security spokesman also deny any 'defense decision'.

the sunday times report also say "Surprisingly, the TRC consumer complaints division has not yet received even a single complaint on the matter." this may not be all that surprising if the telephone lines were/are in fact working. and as i said in the post they were/are working, as anyone can check by dialing those numbers.