The Hon. Bimal Rathnayake
Bimal Rathnayake said the Government had clarified in Parliament that no circular requires approval from Public Security or Civil Defence Committee chairpersons for police character certificates, and urged the Opposition not to spread contrary claims based on isolated examples. He also argued that media freedom must be upheld but false reporting should be challenged, citing the Dr. Shafi episode as an example of media-driven public unrest.
Verbatim record (translated)
Machine-translated from Sinhala / Tamil / English¶ 01 Hon. Presiding Member, the Government side must respond.
¶ 02 First, the Minister of Public Security and Parliamentary Affairs has stated responsibly in this House that there is no circular requiring approval from chairpersons of Public Security (Civil Defence) Committees for police character certificates. Therefore, please do not try to set the country on fire with false politics, Hon. Leader of the Opposition. You may cite a couple of local examples, but when a Minister states this in the House, accept it; otherwise it undermines trust in your high office. Earlier too you cited data claiming to be the source; they were false and mislead the public.
¶ 03 Second, about the media: media have previously incited this country—remember the Dr. Shafi episode, turning the nation into turmoil. We stand for media freedom, but even if it were God—not just media—if they tell lies to the public, we must oppose those lies. Please discharge the responsibility of your office.
Provenance
- Source
- Hansard, Monday, 24 November 2025 ·No. 23008 ·English daily/uncorrected Hansard
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- not yet extracted — page/column anchors are not in the current dataset; the source PDF is the citable location.
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/lk/speeches/15366
Cite as: The Hon. Bimal Rathnayake. 10th Parliament, Parliament of Sri Lanka. Hansard, 24 November 2025. No. 23008. Politick, https://staging.politick.io/lk/speeches/15366