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Sri Lankan lawmakers on Tuesday started debating a controversial web security invoice that has been criticized by opposition politicians, journalists, and rights teams as a transfer by the federal government to stifle freedom of speech.
Public Safety Minister Tiran Alles launched the invoice in Parliament, saying it seeks to handle issues associated to on-line fraud, abuse, and false statements that threaten nationwide safety and stability.
He mentioned the legal guidelines are essential to cope with offenses dedicated on-line, noting that final yr greater than 8,000 such complaints have been filed with police associated to sexual abuse, monetary scams, cyber harassment, information theft, and different offenses.
Nonetheless, media, web, and civil rights teams say the invoice would have “a chilling impact on free speech,” as a number of provisions would serve to undermine human rights and freedom of expression. The teams have demanded that the federal government withdraw the invoice.
Lawmakers are anticipated to vote on the invoice on Wednesday.
The invoice goals to determine a web-based security fee with “wide-ranging powers to limit free speech” that would direct customers, service suppliers and others to “take down content material and block entry to accounts on extraordinarily imprecise and overbroad grounds,” mentioned Article 19, a rights watchdog, and 50 different teams.
Opposition lawmaker Rauff Hakeem mentioned the federal government is making an attempt to throttle freedom of speech in Sri Lanka, including that “a really oppressive atmosphere goes to be created.”
“This can be a manifestation of a authorities which is making an attempt to dismantle even the remaining few safeguards for freedom of expression on this nation and to destroy democracy,” Hakeem mentioned.
Alles rejected the accusations, saying the invoice was not drafted with the intention of harassing media or political opponents.
Debate over the invoice comes as Sri Lanka struggles to emerge from its worst financial disaster, which hit the island nation two yr in the past. The nation declared chapter in April 2022 with greater than $83 billion in debt, greater than half of it to overseas collectors.
The disaster precipitated extreme shortages of meals, gasoline, and different requirements. Strident public protests led to the ouster of then-President Gotabaya Rajapaksa. The IMF agreed final March to a $2.9 billion bailout bundle.
Below new President Ranil Wickremesinghe, the shortages of meals, gasoline, and drugs have largely abated over the previous yr and authorities have restored energy provides. However public dissatisfaction has grown over the federal government’s effort to extend income by elevating electrical energy payments and imposing heavy new earnings taxes on professionals and companies.
Media and civil rights teams accuse the federal government of making an attempt to introduce extra repressive legal guidelines in an try to “suppress the general public’s proper to expression as a slender effort with the purpose of profitable the upcoming elections at any value.”
Sri Lanka’s presidential and parliamentary elections are prone to be held later this yr or early subsequent yr.
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