Media Ministry Secretary W. B. Ganegala said that instructions had been issued over and over again for news websites operating in Sri Lanka to be registered.
However he said that so far only 45 websites have registered with the government information department while many others have not.
He said that most websites which have not registered with the government operate in a manner which violates media ethics.
The Media Ministry secretary warned that action will be taken against websites which fail to register and at the same time publish defamatory content.
On the raid conducted last week on the office of the Sri Lanka Mirror website, Ganegala said that two other websites were operating from the premises of Sri Lanka Mirror.
He said that one of these sites had published content factually incorrect and slandering President Mahinda Raqjapaksa.
The Ministry of Mass Media and Information last November ordered the telecom companies to block access to five websites. It also issued a directive for all the websites carrying Sri Lankan news to register with the Ministry.
The Court in its ruling said that registering was needed to safeguard people from being vilified and defamed among others as people needed to know who was behind the websites in order to seek remedies.
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