Minister rebuts news report

M.Nelson Piyaratne - Kataragama Group

A certain English daily has published a false news report that some Sri Lankan female workers attached to a Jordan garment factory have been raped by a person in the management, Foreign Employment Promotion and Welfare Minister Dilan Perera said.

“We sent a team to Jordan to look into the matter and found it baseless. We inquired from the female workers but they denied such an incident. The paper had taken this news from a web site of an NGO. We called them for the inquiry but they didn't appear to give evidence, he said.

Minister Dilan Perera expressed these views at an awareness programme for the media men of the Moneragala district on Monday. The minister said that there are 5 percent shortcomings and 95 percent valuable service rendered by the Foreign Employment Bureau. But only the 5 percent category is taken into consideration without reporting the 95 percent.

Dilan Perera said some persons made big protests opposite the Jordan embassy demanding the removal of the capital punishment inflicted upon Rizana. It was because of the mediation of President Mahinda Rajapaksa and his friendship with the Jordan king that the implementation of the capital punishment has been delayed for five years. He said: “Ours is Roman Dutch law and theirs is Sharia law which is divine law for them. Their clamour for the removal of death sentence would only end in hastening the punishment”.