Tamils have returned to areas formerly held by the LTTE, although food shortages continued in some areas and thousands remained internally displaced. Kumaratunga came to office promising to respect freedom of expression, but her government has filed criminal defamation charges against several editors. Authorities continued to occasionally harass, threaten, and assault journalists, particularly Tamils. The government continued to limit journalists' access to the civil war, and in June re-imposed censorship on war coverage. Restrictive legislation further chills press freedom, and the government controls Lake House group, the largest newspaper chain.
Print media are both public and private.
Radio and television are predominantly state-owned, and political coverage favors the party in power. Women's groups report that sexual and physical abuse against women is increasing, with the number of rapes rising sharply. Laws protecting women from violence are weakly enforced. Many of the thousands of child domestic servants are physically abused. In April, the chairman of a presidential task force told Reuters that a study had found that 20 percent of boys in one area had been sexually abused.