While addressing at a function held to mark the 20 th Anniversary of the Srilanka Muslim Media forum,
Ranil Wickremasinghe said, that none of us condone extremism be it Sinhala Buddhist, Tamil , Muslim or
Christian extremism. We have seen the harm extremism has done in other countries. All Srilankan want
to live together and take the country forward and consolidate the freedom that has been won. The
media has a great responsibility towards this end. But unfortunately, today the greatest threat to media
is not from elsewhere but coming from the media itself, he alleged.
He referred to an incident, where Sampanthan was alleged to have entered an army camp forcefully .
Allegation was made by interested parties and some politicians. He said, when he contacted the Army
Commander to verify it, he told him that Mr. Sampanthan did not enter the army camp but went to the
land which was to be returned soon. However, Sampanthan should have given prior notice to the Army
about his visit to the Army Commander.
However , no prior notice of Mr.Sampanthan’s visit could be given as this land dispute had transformed
during the meeting and he had acted to defuse the tensions, said Ranil. This matter could be raised
with Sampanthan, he concluded.
