Award winning film producer Vimukthi Jayasundera

Rear Admiral Weerasekera on September 25th in an article in the Sunday 'Divaina' has said that film producers should be labelled as terrorists and hanged.

Since this is a statement issued by a senior officer of the Sri Lanka navy, Free Media Movement (FMM) says that they wanted to know whether this is the official position of the Navy.

Free Media Movement (FMM) acknowledging the right of security service officers to criticise a literary work says that such threatening statements are harmful to the democratic right of film producers to freely come out with their atavistic work.

Army Commander, Lt. General Shantha Kottegoda commenting on the issue told Sandesaya that if film producers have acted in such a way that had defamed the army it was unacceptable.

"If it was so that could undermine the services rendered so far by the armed services", he said.

Asked how he would react to a high ranking official making a threatening statement, Army Commander Kottegoda said that there was no need to do so.

He said a film is passed through the film corporation so that there is a channel to complain if there are any concerns about the armed services being demoralised or demeaned.

"There is no need or right to threat about it", he said.

Army Commander, Kottegoda said though he could not talk on behalf of the navy officer who has made the statement he said an officer's statement should not be taken as an official statement