religion or its founder or any deity or saints venerated by its followers. The Act does not expressly target online expression. However, the phrase “visible representation” could be interpreted to include online expression. The existence of such provisions in Sri Lankan law provides space to legitimise arrests of persons like Sepal Amarasinghe, (Gunatilleke, 2023) and Indika Rathnayake (Udin, n.d.). Amarasinghe was arrested over publishing alleged defamatory remarks on YouTube about the tooth relic. Rathnayake was arrested based on a complaint by a Buddhist monk over certain Facebook posts made by him relating to Buddhism. It was alleged that his posts propagated myths about Buddhism. Even though these arrests were made under different legislation such as the ICCPR, and were criticised for violating freedom of expression, Acts such as the Profane Publications Act and the Press Council Law which prohibit ‘profane’ content could also be weaponised to target such expression, including online ERs have been a constant source of media freedom infringement in Sri Lanka. The ERs issued in April 2019 after the Easter Sunday attacks had specific provisions that dealt with ‘control of publications’ (Gunatilleke, 2019). It gave the Competent Authority1 the power to prohibit the printing, publishing and distribution of any newspaper that could be prejudicial to national security. It defined ‘newspaper’ to be any form of publication, and this would potentially include online publication too. The Competent Authority was empowered to seize any printing press if they were thought to be producing content that was prejudicial to national security even if the content was not intended to be published. Along with the ERs, the Government also imposed a nationwide social media ban following the bombings with the intention of preventing the spread of misinformation. Senior Researcher Sanjana Hattotutwa commented on social media bans stating that “while a ban on social media helps to contain the spread of rumours, it also hampers efforts by journalists to push back on them” (Hassan et al., 2019). RECENT DEVELOPMENTS During the Aragalaya in 2022, many journalists who were covering protests and calling for action on social media were intimidated, harassed or arrested by the police and security forces. In July 2022, four Sirasa TV journalists who were reporting on the protests near Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe’s residence were attacked by the police and Special Task Force (International Federation of Journalists, 2022). Despite there being video evidence of the journalists being attacked by the authorities, Senior Superintendent of Police Romesh Liyanage, who was present at the site, denied his presence at the time of the assault and any knowledge of the attack, during an inquiry by the HRCSL (Sri Lanka Brief, 2022). Even though he was suspended for the assault, he was reinstated after being found not guilty based on a confidential, internal inquiry conducted by the police. In June 2022, journalist Tharindu Uduwaragedara was summoned to the CID without clear reasoning for the summons except that it was related to his YouTube channel (International Federation of Journalists, 2022). More recently in July 2023, he was dragged out of a three-wheeler, According to Emergency Regulation 2, a ‘Competent Authority’ is defined as ‘any person appointed by name, or by office, by the President to be a competent authority’ 1 - 13 -