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64 complaints against press in first three months
The Press Complaints Commission of Sri Lanka (PCCSL) releasing its progress report says, it has attracted considerable public interest, since the official inauguration of its Secretariat on October 15, 2003.

The Interim Report says that it has received 75 communications against items published in the the press and the PCCSL has followed up on 64 of these. The Commission points out that from the commencement of the PCCSL, there has been a steady flow of inquiries on the procedures and scope of the PCCSL.

Islandwide inquiries have been received in all three languages and complaints were lodged in the form of letters, telephone calls and personal visits to the office.

"Inquiries have been from a wide range of persons and organisations, Non Governmental organisations, Diplomatic Missions, Business Firms, Universities and Religious Bodies. Researchers and students of media from Sri Lanka and abroad have also sought information from the PCCSL," the report said.

Giving a breakdown of the 64 complaints that were followed up, the reports said there were 33 complaints against Sinhala papers, eight against Tamil papers and 20 against English papers and two general communications.

The report also said that editors and others have co-operated by publishing rights of replies, corrections and apologies. Since its commencement the PCCSL has made two representations to two groups of journalists .

The first was at a residential workshop for business journalists organised by the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce and the second was for the newly formed group of Tamil women journalists, the report said.

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