The High Commissioner of Sri Lanka in the United Kingdom has written to the Editor of the Guardian newspaper after the UK’s Guardian website posted a quiz by mentioning ‘Eelam’ as an indigenous name of Sri Lanka, linking it with the Tamil Tigers terrorist group.
“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?’ 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” Sri Lanka foreign ministry said in a statement.
“The High Commissioner of Sri Lanka in the United Kingdom wrote to the Editor of the Guardian newspaper on the inaccuracy of this information requesting that the content be removed.” statement further added.
The question which created outrage on social media in Sri Lanka has now been removed by the Guardian website.
Several people had taken to social media to demand the UK guardian website to remove the reference linking Sri Lanka to Eelam and the LTTE.
Demand that @guardian TAKE DOWN Q#2 in their 'Man Friday' quiz of May-15: UTTERLY offensive to #SriLanka'ns & also displays an alarming incompetence in editorial oversight since the quiz has been authored by @lizboul, a subeditor. #TakeItDown ! https://t.co/iqrZKByfm1
— Chevaan Daniel (@ChevaanDaniel) May 16, 2020
Meanwhile some have pointed out that Eelam was used as an ancient name for Sri Lanka but linking the answer with a terrorist group raises questions.
@guardian, why mention the terrorist outfit LTTE in this explanation? 'Eelam' was reportedly an ancient name for Sri Lanka much before LTTE started asking for an independent Tamil Eelamhttps://t.co/KEwFfgbFyV pic.twitter.com/wMOyCJgDh9
— Regina Dulanjali (@ReginaDulanjali) May 16, 2020