Sri Lanka unblocks news website

(December 16, 2011) Sri Lankan authorities agreed on Thursday to restore access to a news website that had been blocked with four others for more than a month over alleged insults and character assassination. The Telecommunication Regulatory Commission agreed to unblock srilankamirror.com on several conditions, including that it will not provide links to sites that are blocked or unregistered, said Saliya Pieris, counsel for the website. The site was partially available Thursday afternoon as some service providers had not yet lifted the block. Rights groups had criticized the order blocking the sites as undemocratic. Sri Lankan laws do not restrict the press from criticizing leaders, but media can be charged for defamation. According to the agreement reached in Supreme Court on Thursday, srilankamirror.com has delinked to the four blocked websites and it will delinked to the unregistered once as soon as it receives a list of them, the site's editor, Keluma Shivantha, said. He had filed a fundamental rights application in the Supreme Court against the blocking.