grabbed by his hair and manhandled by police officers despite him explaining that he was merely reporting the protest that was taking place, and subsequently, he was unlawfully arrested (Committee to Protect Journalists, 2023). The OSA, the latest addition to the set of draconian laws that curtail freedom of expression in Sri Lanka, includes provisions for infringing media freedom. Section 11 gives the Online Safety Commission sweeping powers to determine ‘false statements’ and take measures to ‘prohibit’ its circulation on online channels. The Commission can also issue orders to remove or block content, sites and locations through directives issued to persons and online service providers (Online Safety Bill & Anti-Terror Bill – Law Making To End Democracy & Fundamental Rights Of Sri Lankan Citizens, 2023). Sri Lankans are yet to see this law in practice, but it will embed a culture of State-sponsored harassment of online activists, journalists, writers, trade unions, civil society organisations, and any individual who is critical of the Government and its policies. Furthermore, Section 20 of the Act seeks to protect targeted persons whose “private information” is published online in order to cause harassment, and “harassment” is defined broadly to include the causing of “offence”, “alarm” or “distress”. This provision reintroduces criminal defamation which was repealed by an amendment to the Penal Code in 2002. This provision has serious implications for media freedom as it fails to strike a balance between protecting individuals online and freedom of expression. The proposed ATB also includes provisions that would expressly curtail media freedom. Sections 10 and 11 provide for any organisation to be proscribed as a ‘terrorist’ organisation and publication deemed to be a ‘terrorist’ publication. Detentions for these offences can be made through executive orders and the military is given the power to arrest and detain. These are powers that the authorities did not have under the PTA, therefore it is evident that the ATB intends to further curtail the fundamental freedoms of citizens. Another recent attempt to constrain media freedom has been the announcement of the Broadcasting Authority Bill in 2023. The Bill aims to establish a central authority to regulate electronic media. Furthermore, the Bill would introduce a process of annual licence renewal, which would make journalists and media organisations cautious about criticising the Government. Leader of the Opposition Sajith Premadasa has argued that this requirement will make privately-owned media organisations subservient to the State, the same way State-run media has been (Kotelawala, 2023). The Bill was met with severe opposition and advocacy for self-regulation has begun. In 1997, a similar Bill was tabled by Parliament but was determined to be unconstitutional by the Supreme Court (Dullewe, 2023). The present Bill is set to be tabled in Parliament amidst the opposition to it, and if passed, would have severe consequences on media freedom (Rodrigo, 2024). The discussion on media freedom in Sri Lanka is evidence of multiple attempts by the State to curtail freedom of expression, specifically the freedom of journalists and media workers. This has been enabled by laws that explicitly infringe on media freedom, incidents of State harassment, intimidation and even the killing of journalists, and a long culture of impunity for these crimes. The State is increasingly attempting to regulate the online space and this will inevitably affect media freedom, the impact on citizens’ lives will be far-reaching and hard to reverse. With the media sector lacking diversity in ownership and being highly dependent on major political clans, coupled with the lack of accountability and corruption in governance, the media freedom of citizens is severely at risk. - 14 -