COLOMBO : Former Sri Lankan foreign minister Ali Sabry has lashed Mehdi Hassan for his vindictive attitude in interviewing former Sri Lankan president Ranil Wickremesinghe in his Thursday’s interview with AlJazeerah on March 6.
In his statement in his Twitter, Sabry said : ” I’ve watched Mehdi Hasan before, he’s always aggressive and combative. But even by his usual standards, his interview with Ranil Wickremesinghe was deeply premeditated. This wasn’t about getting answers. It wasn’t about journalism. It was about pushing an agenda, an outright interrogation where the objective was to attack, not engage.
There’s a way to ask tough questions while still being fair. Instead, Mehdi shouted over responses, cut off explanations, and twisted words to fit his own narrative. If the answer didn’t suit him, he simply refused to listen.
I’ve seen how he operates, but I wonder does he apply the same treatment to leaders from powerful nations? Does he aggressively grill them on their failures, their war crimes, their human rights abuses with this same level of hostility? Or is this reserved for leaders from smaller nations like ours?
No one is saying Sri Lanka is without flaws. We have work to do. We need reforms. We need accountability. But that’s our fight. Sri Lankans will decide the future of Sri Lanka, not a journalist with an agenda, not an international media outlet with selective scrutiny.
Public service is often a thankless job. But distorting facts, rewriting history, and weaponizing interviews to undermine a country’s progress is shameful.
You may love him or hate him, but you can’t deny the facts, when Sri Lanka hit rock bottom, RW stepped in and pulled the country out of an economic recession and quagmire. Not once, but twice, first in 2001 and again in 2022. No one else had the courage to take responsibility when it mattered most. At the very least, we must show some gratitude.
And let’s not get carried away celebrating this so-called “takedown.” No contemporary politician in Sri Lanka could have stood up to that level of bullying and hostility. RW, once again, proved why he stands apart.
Sri Lanka will move forward, not on the terms of an international journalist with an agenda, but on our own.”
