The Sunday Leader. I warned you.
10/06/2010
I warned you that if you don’t reply to me, I’ll make sure my articles appear within the top ten results for Google searches for you. As of today (10th June 2010), one of my articles is the 10th best Google result for “the sunday leader”… This isn’t going to stop anytime soon.
As the scandal surrounding The Sunday Leader continues to unfold after they accused the UNP leader Ranil Wickremasinghe of corruption for accepting Rs. 48 million from a criminal named Sabir Hussein, without having any documentary evidence whatsoever to account for more than Rs. 47 million of that money, The Sunday Leader has resorted to removing comments I and someone else made on their website thesundayleader.lk asking about it, even though neither of our comments contained any abusive language at all.
On 6th June 2010, the headline of The Sunday Leader was “UNP Leader Got Rs. 48 Mn From One “Donor”.” Commenting on it on their website, I raised the point that even though this man Sabir Hussein (who is believed to be a CRIMINAL by this newspaper) claims that he gave Rs. 48 Mn (USD 456,000) to Ranil Wickremasinghe, even though the newspaper uses his claim as its main headline, according to the article, the documentary evidence they have only accounts for less than 1 million rupees (USD 9000). Even these USD 9000 weren’t directly given to the UNP or to Ranil Wickremasinghe. In my comment, I asked them to explain whether or not they have documentary evidence to account for the rest of the money (i.e. USD 451,000). This comment, and a similar comment some other person made there, have now been deleted.
The fact that they have deleted my comment implies that they do not have any such evidence. The Sunday Leader should either directly claim that they have such documentary evidence and publish photographs of them on their newspaper, or they should publicly apologise to Ranil Wickremasinghe for being the centre of a huge false propaganda storm against him, and to me and the other commenter for shamelessly deleting our comments.
I wish that I can sue you, Sunday Leader. I can’t. But I will not stop until you reply to this. I will set up a new website or a dozen of them if I have to. I will make sure that my articles about you appear among the top ten Google searches for you. I will do all of that, unless you reply.
And so The Sunday Leader, the self-proclaimed unbowed and unafraid newspaper, continues to practise yellow journalism with misleading facts and blaring headlines, giving vent to the sexual frustrations of its malicious backers.
In an previous article I wrote how terrible Frederica Jansz, the Editor-in-Chief of this tabloid is at Maths. Now it seems that one of its “prominent” correspondents, Faraz Shauketaly, who definitely has something up his/her rectum, is not much better at it either.
Today (6th June 2010), in the newspaper’s main article titled “UNP Leader Got Rs. 48 Mn From One ‘Donor'”, using far too many words as usual to say a precious little, Faraz writes “Sensational new information obtained by The Sunday Leader show that the former Chairman of the UNP and Ranil Wickremesinghe-confidant, Malik Samarawickrema, collected on behalf of UNP Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe a huge Rs. 48 million from one “donor”. Swedish based Sri Lankan businessman, Sabir Hussein, 50, contacted The Sunday Leader with details.”
I’m sorry, but I find this article to be the greatest creation of yellow journalism since Joseph Pulitzer first coined the term. Faraz writes “Later, Samarawickrema contacted us again to say that he was UNSURE whether Hussein indeed had a criminal record and that in fact it had to do with an issue with the Swedish authorities. IF it is the case that Hussein has a criminal record and that Samarawickrema was aware of it , it proves that Ranil Wickremesinghe had no qualms about taking huge amounts of money from criminals.” UNSURE and IF, are great words to be used in a sentece, and in the sentece before it, that calls a man corrupt for taking money from criminals, I see.
Have no doubts, I truly believe this man Sabir Hussein’s a criminal. Apparently The Sunday Leader believes so as well. Now read the rest very carefully.
Faraz writes “Hussein gave documentary evidence of one such donation he made from Sweden, and CLAIMS that it was PART of a substantial donation of approximately USD 460,000 made to the UNP. The bulk of these funds were given to the Leader of the Opposition, according to Hussein.”
Then Faraz writes “The Sunday Leader has documentary evidence which proves a transfer of USD 9000 (approximately 0.95 million rupees) in November 2001 to Penguin Sportwear Ltd. which company Samarawickrema confirmed belongs to him.”
So the documentary evidence they have (if these documents, provided by a CRIMINAL, are legitimate) only proves that this CRIMINAL gave a minor donation of approximately 0.95 million rupees to the UNP.
So the newspaper’s headline “UNP Leader Got Rs. 48 Mn From One “Donor”” is just a baseless claim by a CRIMINAL named Sabir Hussein. Yellow journalism at its best, don’t you think?
People have the right to know. They have the right to know if their opposition leader is a corrupt old man. But people also have the right to know if a newspaper, which calls itself unbowed and unafraid, of which the office is a pilgrimage site to foreign jounalists and NGO personnel, practises yellow journalism. I’m just ensuring that people get to enjoy this right.
P.S. Indi Samarajiva, the owner of Kottu, is, I believe a decent guy. He has published many of my articles on the Kottu section of the newspaper’s website in the past (I’ve never bought it. Just read it on the web). I just hope he has what it takes to publish this article as well (with minor editing). I just hope he does. But I don’t think he can. He has a better chance of sticking something up Jansz’s rectum than publishing this on that tabloid…
Lefroy's Worldview 