Posts Tagged ‘Sri Lanka’
August 4th, 2011
On Tuesday it was reported that
Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa
threatened the chairman of
The Sunday Leader,
Lal Wickrematunge, by phone on 19 July. In response to an article that claimed China had given the president and his son millions of dollars to be used “at their discretion”, Rajapaksa
reportedly told Wickrematunge, “you can attack me politically, but if you attack me personally, I will know how to attack you personally too.” The Sunday Leader is Sri Lanka’s only independent English-language newspaper, and has long been targeted by the government. The paper claims the 2009 murder of its former head,
Lasantha Wickematunge (Lal’s brother), was never investigated fully.
August 1st, 2011
Gnanasundaram Kuhanathan, editor of the Tamil-language daily Uthayan, was on Friday evening
beaten by unidentified men with iron bars in the northern Sri Lankan city of Jaffna. Having been rushed to hospital with critical head injuries, he remains unconscious.
Reporters sans Frontieres (RSF) says that while physical attacks against journalists have largely fallen since 2010, threats and acts of intimidation continue to be common in Sri Lanka. In May, Kuhanathan’s colleague, reporter S. Kavitharan, was attacked by armed men as he made his way to work.
June 22nd, 2011
A bid for greater media freedom put forward by opposition parties in
Sri Lanka has been rejected by the ruling party led by
President Mahinda Rajapakse. The
United People’s Freedom Alliance, which enjoys a two-thirds majority, voted against the proposed Freedom of Information Bill. The bill was presented after opposition members accused the government of trying to stifle media freedom. A total of at least 18 journalists and media employees have been
killed in the past decade.
April 26th, 2011
Police on Monday (25 April) arrested a journalist working for the independent website, Lanka eNews. Shantha Wijeysooria was
arrested at the website’s offices in Colombo for alleged contempt of court. The charges relate to an April 19 article which allegedly
defamed the court’s honour by suggesting that it was holding two suspects in custody in contravention of the attorney general’s written order to release them. The paper issued an apology on 22 April.
November 10th, 2010
Sri Lankan newspapers have refused to participate in a police campaign to
track down people who have starred in pornographic films. The crackdown is part of a broader crusade against “moral crimes”, including “
indecent” advertising on film billboards. The police want newspapers to run mugshots of
over 80 people but all the national daily newspapers bar one have
refused to print the photographs. Those actors caught face six months in prison and a 90 dollar fine.
May 7th, 2010
Mervyn Silva has resigned as media minister just 13 days after he was
appointed by President Mahinda Rajapaksa. He has been replaced by former defence minister Keheliya Rambukwella,
Reporters Sans Frontières claim like Silva, Rambukwella has a reputation for using violence and intimidation to silence journalists.
May 4th, 2010
President Mahinda Rajapaska has pardoned a journalist sentenced to 20 years in prison after being convicted of supporting terrorism
. Tyssainayagam, then editor of North-Eastern Monthly magazine, was first arrested in March 2008. He was accused of conspiring to cause ethnic violence through his articles. The Tamil journalist, who wrote about the effects of the separatist conflict on the ethnic Tamil minority, was convicted in August 2009. The government’s pardon announcement was timed to coincide with World Press Freedom Day on 3 May.
April 28th, 2010
The newly elected President of Sri Lanka, Mahinda Rajapaksa,
appointed Mervyn Silva as the deputy minister for media and information on Friday. Silva is a politician with a
notorious reputation for physically and verbally attacking journalists and other members of the press, including
one incident in December 2008 where he and a large group of men stormed a television station and assaulted its news director. The appointment angered
Reporters sans frontières, it asked “In what country do you appoint an arsonist to put out fires?”
