The District Inter Religious Committee (DIRC) Batticaloa organised a media awareness event with the participation of leading media personnel in district representing newspapers, TV and radio as well as news bloggers and websites.
NPC Project coordinator, V. Thusandra, facilitated a discussion on the role of media in peace building and interfaith dialogue. Topics such as influence of media, information control, politics of the media and power of social media were discussed. DIRC members spoke about ethnic and religious tensions in Batticaloa and asked the media to join the inter faith and inter ethnic dialogue. The media personnel promised to give more visibility for DIRC events and to take part in peace building process.
They also discussed the ethnic and religious clashes taking place on the Internet. It also was mentioned that there was a possibility of conflicts to spill over into physical violence.