r Ministry of Defence - Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka demands London Guardian to remove travel quiz refers to Eelam

May 16, 2020

The Government has informed the London Guardian to remove the word Eelam  in its travel quiz of its online edition.

The High Commissioner of Sri Lanka in the United Kingdom Saroja Sirisena has written to the Guardian newspaper’s editor  on the inaccuracy of this information requesting that the content be removed.

The Foreign Relations Ministry in a press release stated that the attention of the Ministry is drawn to a quiz titled “Travel quiz: do you know your islands, Man Friday?” published on the web edition of The Guardian newspaper in the United Kingdom on Friday, 15 May 2020.  The second question reads -‘Eelam is an indigenous name for which popular holiday island?’

According to the Ministry release, among the answers to this question, Sri Lanka has been listed as one of the choices and when one selects  Sri Lanka as the answer, whilst indicating it as the correct answer, a further description ‘the full name of the island’s recent military insurgency was LTTE – Liberation Tigers for Tamil Eelam’ appears.