FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION IN THE DIGITAL ERA

FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION IN THE DIGITAL ERA

“Whenever we discuss about right to free speech and expression it is helpful to remember it as a composite right. It is not an absolute right although it is a fundamental right. There are two parts in freedom of expression. First one is right to be free to hold own opinion. Second one is right to be informed and to inform others. If we go through declaration of human rights of 1948 where 170 countries rectified, India in 1979 and Sri Lanka also rectified since 1955 in the universal declaration of human rights of the United Nations. Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression according to the article 19 of UDHR- Universal declaration of human rights”, Dr. Ankuran Dutta from University of Guwatti, India responded to a question in the second virtual training program for University of Peradeniya students on ‘Freedom of Expression’ was held on September 11th, 20201.

In this training, 90 students (M-17, F-73) were participated from the Departments of Agriculture extension, Fine arts, Sociology, Psychology, Technology and Food science.

Mohamed Azad, Program Director of SDJF Moderated the session. In his topic introduction, he said, “There has been drastic transformation is happening in exercising the freedom of expression by the citizens after the invention of technology and social media. Not only in Sri Lanka but globally. As digital citizens we need to define our freedom of expression. We need to understand about our rights and limitations in digital space according to the law.Now we are living in a digital world and it is essential to look at freedom of expression according to digitalized media”.

The session was initially facilitated by Dr.MC. Rasmin on introduction of the concept of freedom of expression and the legal framework in Sri Lanka through “Included, excluded” exercise virtually. And also take through the students on how freedom of expression is suppressed in the recent past by showing some recent examples. Dr. Rasmin further added “Digital world is so connected, networked and highly efficient. If you look at the digital space very carefully, you can see that every individual has become a media organization. They can write, post, share contents and create graphics, create videos, audio podcasting programs and many other creative things on digital media. All these things has become very easy for us in the digital era” and also creating new challenges and problems like fake news, mis information widely abusing the freedom of expression.

Before the commencement of the session Dr. M.C. Rasmin gave an online ques for students to express their sense of understand about ‘Freedom of Expression’. Students had opportunity to show their opinion under four answers. Majority of students believed that they are having online freedom without any restrictions not only on online but offline. Some students said freedom of expression is restricted unlawfully and less number of students believed that freedom of expression never restricted unlawfully.

Then Ms.Kaushalya Ariyaratne, Attorney at Law and Social activist discussed how university students and future journalists should enjoy the freedom of expression responsibly in the meantime for social cause and activism. She added that “Anybody can be an activist. There are many social media activists rather physical activists in digital era. Social media has been driving through all these social changes. World activism has changed a lot due to the digital accessibility”.

N.J. Nasrin, a student said “today we had a really good session, we got to know about our rights on freedom of expression. Not only that but also about our responsibilities”

The activity was implemented as a part of Incubator Spaces for Promoting Information Rights and freedom of Expression (InSPIRE) project implemented by Sri Lanka Development Journalist Forum (SDJF) in partnership with Helvetas Intercooperation and funded by the European Union.

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