REPORTERS FOR CEYLON

Press, Volume XCVI, Issue 28450, 3 December 1957, Page 20

REPORTERS FOR CEYLON

Restrictions Lifted (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 7 p.m.) COLOMBO, Dec. 1 The Ceylon Prime Minister, M.* Solomon Bandaranaike, has agreed to lift restrictions on the entry of British and Commonwealtn journalists into Ceylon, the Colombo newspaper, ‘‘Times of Cevlon.” said today.

Mr Bandaranaike gave this assurance to Mr Evert Barger, sec-retary-general of the Commonwealth Press Union, the newspaper said. Mr Bandaranaike told the International Press Institute in Kandy last week that he had instructed Ceylonese diplomatic missions abroad that British and Commonwealth journalists who wished to visit Ceylon would have to obtain visas, the newspaper said. The Prime Minister said that he had given the instructions after the publication of an article in a London newspaper which he felt cast an aspersion on his Minister of Justice and the Gov-ernor-General. The newspaper said that Mr Barger told the Prime Minister that, while the Press Union greatly pegretted the publication of the particular article, they felt the Government should not resort to discriminatory action against journalists generally. Another newspaper, the ‘‘Ceylon Observer,” said that Mr Alastair Hetherington, editor of the ‘‘Manchester Guardian,” had administered the coup de grace to Mr Bandaranaike when he remarked that, by his act, the Prime Minister had pushed Ceylon into a very unhappy partnership with the only other country in the Commonwealth which insisted on visas for British journalists— South Africa. LThe article referred to concerned a report that it was possible to get released from gaol in Ceylon for 1000 rupees—about £75.]