A Sri Lankan
magistrate has ordered police to publish photographs of 83 local
pornography actors in a bid to identify and arrest them for violating
obscenity laws, officials said.
Police told Colombo Fort magistrate Lanka Jayaratne
that the men and women featured on 180 Sri Lankan pornographic websites
that have been blocked by telecommunications regulators.
We now have a court order to publish the
photographs in the national press and seek public assistance to
identify and arrest them, a police officer said, declining to be
named.
He said the actors faced up to six months jail or a
fine of 10,000 rupees (90 dollars), or both, if convicted.
Update: Request Refused
12th November 2010.
Based on article
from google.com
Newspaper editors in Sri Lanka refused to publish
pictures of men and women who are wanted by police for appearing on
porn websites in the country.
Under a crackdown on pornography on the Indian Ocean
island, police are trying to trace local men and women pictured in
compromising poses and had asked newspapers to reproduce mugshots of 83
of them.
We were given the photos with a request to publish
them, but we decided not to, said Siri Ranasinghe, chief editor of
the mass circulating Sinhalese daily, the Lankadeepa: It is a
question of privacy. We don't know who these people are and under what
circumstances the police got these pictures. Technology can be used to
manipulate pictures, so we decided to leave them out.
All national dailies refused to print the photographs
except for the Lakbima Sinhalese newspaper, which published the
mugshots at the bottom of page two, without any reference to the
allegations against them.
Update: Poor Response
24th November 2010. Based on article
from sundaytimes.lk
The Police will now release to the police stations the
pictures of the locals who acted in these films to trace them. This is
in contrast to the previous plan to give maximum publicity, through the
media, to the pictures of the locals and get help to identify them.
However, only one newspaper had published the
pictures. Police said they had obtained a court order to publish the
pictures, but were unable to confirm whether the pictures were doctored
or not.
Police had been able to track down only three persons
from some 83 pictures which had been released to the media. The three
persons were released on bail after being produced in court.
Update: 7 Police Victims Arrested
3rd December 2010. See article
from bbc.co.uk
Sri Lankan police have arrested and bailed seven
people accused of appearing in pornographic films. Police said the
seven had to make statements and pay a surety before being released.
The suspects face up to six months in jail or a fine
of 10,000 rupees ($89.75), or both, if convicted. The suspects were
allegedly identified by photos obtained by the police from the now
banned local porn web sites.
The Sri Lankan media has reported that some of the
pictures released by police were in fact from private videos released
by estranged lovers, while some appeared to have been secretly shot
with hidden cameras.
