‘Sri Lanka govt pressuring fans’ - MIA

M.I.A. has claimed that the Sri Lankan government is forcing her fans to remove her videos from YouTube.

The ‘XXXO’ singer told The Guardian that the UPFA-led government is exploiting its technological awareness to suppress her fans’ uploads, only leaving those from official channels like Vevo.

M.I.A. said: “They buried my ‘Paper Planes’, none of my f**king s**t comes up. All my videos have been constantly pulled, the latest thing that’s up there is from 11 months ago.”

She rejected the suggestion that the clips had been taken down by her record company and suggested that it was instead a response to her support for separatist Sri Lankan organisation the Tamil Tigers.

“The Sri Lankan government is writing to them and saying, ‘If you stick MIA videos up we’re gonna take you to jail for supporting terrorism’,” M.I.A. claimed.

“They’ve Facebooked and MySpaced my fans saying, ‘If you support this person you’ll get done for terrorism because under the PTA [Prevention of Terrorism Act] you’re supporting someone who supports a terrorist group and you’re a terrorist because it covers anything to do with affiliation’.”

She continued: “They really f**king know what they’re f**king doing and it’s crazy f**ked-up that I am the first artist on the internet who happened to be a Tamil.

“And the first government that took down the Tamils is the most internet-championing family of the third world. So it was a battle of the internet when we got on there.”

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