Journalist Tissainayagam to get “Reporters without borders” Award
Detained Sri Lankan Tamil journalist J.S. Tissainayagam has been designated as a recipient of a prestigious award by the media watchdog Reporters Without Borders. Tissainayagam is behind bars in Sri Lanka being the first journalist to be charged under the draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act for his journalistic writing.
[J.S. Tissainayagam-in Aug 2008]
The awards will be distributed on Thursday 4 December, 11 a.m., at the Espace Fondation EDF, 6 rue Récamier, in Paris, Shirin Ebadi, Nobel Peace Prize winner, will present the prize to the winners.
Tissainayagam has been given the award under Category 1 which relates to "Journalists who through their work, their principled stand or their attitude have displayed support for freedom of information".
The citation about Tissainayagam is as follows:
Sri Lanka - J. S. Tissainayagam
Currently held in appalling conditions in a Colombo prison, Tamil journalist J. S. Tissainayagam was arrested in March 2008 while working on the launch of the news website Outreachlk. He was charged with terrorism on the basis of articles he wrote in 2006 in which he referred to a military offensive in the Tamil region that was accompanied, he said, by a terrible humanitarian crisis for the civilian population. This is the first time that a journalist has been held on terrorism charges because of what he wrote.
A contributor to the Sunday Times newspaper, Tissainayagam set up Outreachlk in February 2008 with funding from the German development agency GTZ. His lawyer has never been allowed to speak to him in private all the time he has been held by the anti-terrorism police in the capital. Attempts have been made to intimidate his wife and European parliamentarians had to intercede in order to get the authorities to agree to let him have the glasses he needs to read. Two other journalists are being held in connection with the case.
The 2008 nominees in the "Journalist" category in addition to Tissainayagam are :
Niger - Moussa Kaka
Syria - Michel Kilo
Russia - Natalia Morar
Vietnam - Nguyen Viet Chien
Cuba - Ricardo González Alfonso
4 Comments
All those who claim that GOSL is fair and square need to examine their thinking on the basis how Tissainayagam is being ill treated. He has been kept in Jail on flimsiest of charges and his medical needs utterly dis-regarded. His case is known since it has been much publicized and all efforts to free has been unsuccessful.
There are hundreds suffering in SL prisons being falsely accused of involvement in terrorism. Some may be even dead while families await their return unaware of their fate.
This is a clear evidence of state terrorism, brutality by the armed forces, refusal of Rule of Law, no press freedom, kidnappings and murders, anyone can be detained without charges by the Rajapakse regime. The reporters all over the world should report these attrocities and demand for fair justice for all.
The world (IC) does not do anything as long as Sri Lanka has a Democratic Parliament, Judiciary etc. to
look after itself. So what can the IC do except
write, write and keep writing. The UN is unable to
make any tangible moves in the genocides taking place
around the world, nor the decade long political prisoners in Mayanmar. So what does it matter to the
IC re Political prisoners in Sri Lanka
White-van Democracy rules the day.
Tissainayagam is a "high-profile" prisoner, detained aginst all civilised norms by a state that is now recognized by many as authoritarian and fascist.
He serves to highlight the plight of thousands of "low-profile" Tamils rounded up like cattle and detained on flimsy allegations to languish in the jails of the South without being charged, often unknow even to their next of kin.