End Incitement to Violence Against Journalists
Statement by IFJ
The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) appeals to the international community to take urgent action to demand that Sri Lanka’s Government end immediately its campaign of accusing journalists of treason and association with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE), after a prominent media rights defender was abducted and brutally assaulted yesterday.
Poddala Jayantha, a journalist and general secretary of the Sri Lanka Working Journalists’ Association (SLWJA), an IFJ affiliate, was abducted by at least six unknown people. He was bashed repeatedly with wooden and metal poles and his beard and hair were shaved off.
Local media reported that witnesses saw Jayantha pushed into a white van at Ambuldeniya junction, Nungegoda, in Colombo, about 5pm. He was then blindfolded before being assaulted and later dumped by a roadside.
The assailants crushed Jayantha’s fingers with a heavy wooden block, saying they would make sure he could not write again. His left leg is broken and he is suffering head injuries.
The IFJ firmly believes the Government of President Mahinda Rajapaksa must accept responsibility for the violence against Jayantha and other journalists and media workers in Sri Lanka.
Leading government figures and officers have consistently accused journalists of treason and have conducted a systematic campaign to vilify any media personnel who dares to question the Government’s conduct of its war with the LTTE.
“Highly inflammatory public statements by government officials and the failure to investigate attacks on media personnel and to arrest perpetrators makes the Government implicitly responsible for the continuing violence against media in Sri Lanka,” IFJ General Secretary Aidan White said.
The most recently recorded hate-inciting speech by a government authority was on May 28, when Inspector General of Police Jayantha Wickramaratne was reported as telling state-owned Independent Television Network (ITN) that several journalists who reported on Sri Lanka’s conflict were reportedly on the LTTE payroll.
The local Daily Mirror reported that Wickramaratne said in the TV interview that many of the unnamed journalists were “connected with international organisations and had been always clamouring for media freedom and democratic and human rights of the people”.
ITN also reportedly aired images of Jayantha in another program, while repeating the Inspector General’s accusations.
On May 22, an editorial in the state-controlled Sinhala language daily called for stoning and expelling of professional journalists who grow beards. Jayantha is known for his beard.
While a vicious trend of violence against media personnel has been in play for several years, the murder of Sunday Leader editor Lasantha Wickrematunge on January 8 heightened the climate of fear among the local media community. In an editorial published posthumously on January 11, Lasantha predicted his murder and attributed blame to the highest levels of the Government.
Abduction and assault of media personnel is commonplace in Sri Lanka. In none of the cases below has anyone been arrested or charged.
On March 11, Dammika Ganganath Dissanayake, media adviser to Sri Lanka’s principal opposition party and a former chairman of the state-owned broadcast agency, was abducted by armed men. He later said he had been blindfolded and questioned at length about a book criticising the President.
On February 26, N. Vidyatharan, editor of Colombo-based Tamil language newspaper Sudaroli and Jaffna-based Uthayan, was taken in a white van and believed abducted. It emerged he had been arrested by police. A Defence spokesman said the arrest and the manner in which it was conducted were justified because Vidyatharan was a “wanted person”.
On March 11, in an interview aired on an Australian news channel, Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the brother of the President, accused Vithyatharan of being a “terrorist”. However, Vidyatharan was released on April 27 without charge.
On May 22, 2008, Keith Noyahr, a defence reporter for The Nation, was abducted and violently assaulted. He was released the next day and spent several days in intensive care.
The IFJ and other press freedom organisations are deeply concerned for the safety of journalists and media workers in Sri Lanka amid the climate of fear and retribution prevailing as the Government declares its war with the LTTE at an end.
National governments and the international community must call the Government of Sri Lanka to account, and demand it take action to end its own representatives’ hate campaign against media personnel and that it order high-level investigations into all attacks on media personnel.
For further information contact IFJ Asia-Pacific on +612 9333 0919
5 Comments
What do Journalists have to do that distinguishes themselves from others?
Ban Ki Moon does care about how many Srilankans are being killed.
Indians want a rouge government in SL
China need a port
US is busy distributing dole for big companies
Sri Lanka produced some of the giants of the free Press of Asia. The names of men like Frank Moraes, Tarzie Vittachi, Denzil Peiris, Reggie Michael, SP Amarasingham, Reggie Siriwardena, Mervyn de Silva, Ajith Samaranayake et al will be remembered with reverence and awe by the present and future generations. These were journalists from the English Press in the Island. I am sure there were many like D.B. Dhanapala and others from the Sinhala and Tamil Press whose contribution is as equal or better. In recent times there were
high-profile journalists who went after sensationalism and were, in more ways than one, creatures of politicians or political parties. Some even were known to be no less than blackmailers. But I suppose in every sublime discipline there are also those who are a discredit to great professions. The culture of governance during the times of these giants was so dignified subjecting these men of distinction to threats, intimidation, insults and the like would have been considered infra dig. All that went sliding from the time Lake House was nationalized. Since then the fearless independence of our Press was under constant attack – never physical then. But now it is more than that – acid,
knives, crowbars, knuckle-dusters, iron rods, fire-arms are freely used to cow down journalists by a regime which wants the world to believe they are snow-white and incapable of commiting wrong. Like in Pol Pot’s Cambodia and Mugabe’s Zimbabwe the free Press here is dead as a door-nail. Editorials and “critical” articles in the private Press today smacks of the sycophancy of the “kept Press” of the State. Govt ministers ceaselessly tell the world “all you have to do is to read our Sunday newspapers to see the level of freedom in our media” patting themselves on the back for defending the Govt. Little do they realize they are hardly taken seriously by any visiting journalist or of those in the more prestigious one overseas as being of any consequence. Empty homilies by the world alone will not do here. IPU and other bodies overseeing global journalist interests must take erring States to task in no uncertain terms. The universality and sanctity of journalistic freedom should not remain in statutues only. Does the Rajapakse regime consider it a laudable achievement that the largest number of journalists in this country have taken flight for their lives and the safety of their families during this reign of the Chintanaya - only for the "crime" of carrying out their expected duties guaranteed under the Constitution? Many think we still have not seen the worst so far as the fate of neutral Lankan journalists are concerned – and, that is no cause for comfort.
Ilaya Seran Senguttuvan
The silence of the head of state on several matters is rather disturbing
1. Attacks on the media.
2. The plight of IDP's including disappearances etc. To date he has not bothered to visit the camps and see his subjects.
3. The 13th amendment and APRC.
May we know what his excellency feels on these matters.Is it because these are not considered important.Instead the media spokesman and others issue various vague statements. Even the statement by the Chief Justice regarding IDP's aired on a 7 pm newscast was later removed and not reported by anyone. The incident regarding Poddala Jayantha has also been downplayed by the media and only mentioned on a couple of channels. Sri Lanka seems to be heading to become a carbon copy of the Idi Amin, Mugabe regimes.
Many of those journalists in the south who were wrongly arrested, assaulted and otherwise intimidated have nothing whatsoever to do with the secessionist movements in Sri Lanka - quite a few have also been murdered, as you know only too well. Humanitarian workers and human right lawyers too have suffered enormously at hands of the present fascist Sinhala regime.
All these attrocities have continued to happen only because the international community, instead of nipping Sinhala fascism in the bud, pampered and supported it through out against relentless appeals by Tamil community not to do so. With the fullest support of the international community the Sinhala fascists have 'politically orphaned' the Tamils. Thanks to the international community's 'good intentions' for Tamils our heads are delivered 'on a platter' to the Sinhala fascists in Colombo! Rumour has it that Indians too have 'good intentions' for Tamil in Sri Lanka.
So, it is true what they say about 'good intentions': THE PATH TO HELL WAS PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONS!
Why so? Would it be better if all these people had 'bad intentions' for Tamils. Now that all those with good intentions have left us 'politically orphaned', if they showed 'bad intentions' towards Tamils, would we get our Thamil Eelam?
What about India? Apparently, India employed the Sinhala fascists to fight a war by proxy against the Tamils. At least, that is what President Rajapaksa says, that he fought India's war against Tamils. This is over and above sending the IPKF to the Tamil homelands to murder, pillage, plunder, rape by over 100,000 of them for over three years. By the time our friendly neighbourhood jawans left Tamil homeland, they have the Tamil intellengia, and were carry their loot in bullock cart to Trincomalee harbour.
Thanks Mother India! How about showing us some bad intentions, just so we may get our Thamil Eelam, now that we are politically orphaned!!!