Aththa Newapaper "Banned" By Communist Party Due To Anti-government Reports

From asianmirror.lk

The Communist Party of Sri Lanka has withheld all the copies of the latest edition of ‘Aththa’ newspaper without releasing them to the market.

The ‘seized’ copies of Aththa newspaper are presently stored inside a room at the Communist Party headquarters. However, a front page story of banned edition of Aththa newspaper states that the government has offered the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to UNP Parliamentarian Ravi Karunanayake. Another front page story says a Catholic religious leader has expressed concerns over a statement made by a state official with regard to the papal visit.

The lead story of the banned edition says that the UNP Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe, who earlier positioned himself as the presidential candidate of the party, has decided to field another “horse” at the presidential election.

According to some sources however, the main story for contention had been a response to Professor Thissa Witharana, by Central Committee member of the Lanka Sama Samaja Party Chameera Perera.

‘Aththa’ is the official newspaper of the Community Party with a history of more than five decades. ‘Aththa’ reached its zenith is the 1960s and 1970s under its most celebrated editor the late B.A. Siriwardena. The name of the newspaper derived from ‘Pravda’, the official newspaper of the Communist Party of the old soviet Russia.

After a hiatus of several years, ‘Aththa’ now comes to the market as a weekend newspaper published by the Communist Party of Sri Lanka.

The Communist Party of Sri Lanka has still not made any official statement on its decision withhold the copies of the ‘Aththa’ newspaper. Our attempts to contact Communist Party bigwig Senior Minister D.E.W. Gunasekera did not bear fruit.