Lanka allays fears over media accreditation at CHOGM summit

Sri Lanka today sought to allay concerns over accreditation of international media for CHOGM summit after reports emerged that the country might block access to some media organisations over their critical reporting of its military campaign against LTTE.
A release from Charitha Herath, the chair of the media sub committee of Commonwealth Heads of Governments Meeting (CHOGM) Task Force, said the accredition of all international and domestic media is based entirely on the Commonwealth Secretariat guidelines.
"There have been various reports recently in the media expressing concern about the accreditation process", the release said.
However, "the procedure will be similar to that of the last CHOGM held in Perth, Australia in 2011," it added.

Concerns have been raised over unhindered media access to the summit, especially to the British television Channel 4, which has in recent years aired documentaries allegedly showing human rights abuses by the Lankan armed forces during the military campaign against the LTTE in 2009.
The British government has publicly urged Lankan authorities to grant entry to all international media for the summit to be held in November this year.
The international media watchdog, Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), last week also raised concerns that Sri Lanka might opt to block accreditation of media.