British scribe deported for biased, distorted, irresponsible reporting

British journalist Jeremy Page was deported from Colombo as he had been blacklisted for biased, distorted and irresponsible reporting on Sri Lanka’s battle against LTTE terror, Immigration and Emigration chief P. Bandula Abeykoon said yesterday.

"We will not allow foreign journalists who defy the sacred ethic of balanced reporting to come here and file warped reports", he insisted. "That’s why we have blacklisted many of them".

Page, the South Asia Correspondent for The Times in the United Kingdom was detained on arrival at the Bandaranaike International Airport and deported the following day.

In a report in the Times Online edition of April 18, 2009, Page says that when his details were keyed into a computer at the airport’s immigration office, a message "DO NOT ALLOW TO ENTER THE COUNTRY" flashed up on the screen.

>> Full Story