Chennai Nov 10: MDMK General Secretary Vaiko today described the Supreme Court's order staying the arrest of six journalists, who were awarded 15 day's simple imprisonment by the Tamil Nadu Assembly, as a "slap on the face of the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa". The apex court order had upheld the Indian democracy, he told reporters, when he was brought to a Pota court here.

He described the Tamil Nadu Assembly Speaker K Kalimuthu's remarks that Jayalalithaa was not responsible for the assembly decision awarding the sentence to the scribes as the "biggest joke of the century". His statement in English might have been scripted by Jayalalithaa herself, he said. He said roughing up of The Hindu editor-in-chief N Ram and his brother N Murali at Bangalore, allegedly by Tamil Nadu police, only exposed the "sadistic pleasure of the Chief Minister".

On Sri Lankan Tamils issue, he said all the countries in the world wanted a solution to the ethnic issue in Sri Lanka. Even the UN General Secretary Kofi Annan had expressed such a view, he said adding that if Annan had made the remarks in Tamil Nadu, Jayalalithaa might not hesitate to invoke Pota against him also.

When police attempted to prevent Vaiko from meeting the press, he angrily said that as long as he was in the court premises, he was under the custody of the court and police had no right to interfere. Bureau Report