[CPJ]

The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by Sri Lankan Defense Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa’s brazen public call yesterday to censor the media and reintroduce criminal defamation laws. The comments were published in a Sinhala-language interview by Sri Lanka’s largest weekly, Sunday Lankadeepa, according to Free Media Movement spokesman Sunanda Deshapriya and veteran Sri Lankan journalist Iqbal Athas. “If I have the power I will not allow any of these things to be written,” the minister said in reference to reporting on the military, according to the Free Media Movement translation.

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[BBC]

A renegade former commander of Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tiger rebels has been jailed for identity fraud in the UK. The BBC’s Jill McGivering watched Col Karuna’s sentencing and asked human rights groups for their reaction. Isleworth Crown Court is an unimpressive modern building, set midway down a leafy residential street in suburban London. But on Friday, court number three was attracting an unusual amount of media attention. Outside, passers-by were stopping to ask questions about the unfamiliar sight of a TV camera crew. Inside, the two rows of government seats that constitute the public gallery in the court were full.

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[AHRC]

On February 4, Sri Lanka will celebrate the 60th anniversary of its independence from the British colonial empire. There is hardly any mood to celebrate in the country, however. Beset by enormous economic hardships and price hikes, by ever unprecedented levels of blatant corruption and abuse of power, rejection of adherence to the Constitution itself and violent conflict within which all parties to the conflict seek a more direct military confrontation, the people of the country are confused about the meaning of it all.

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[BBC]

The United States does not believe that free & fair elections can be held in Batticaloa if one party is allowed to bear arms says the US Ambassador for Sri Lanka, Robert O Blake. If one party is allowed arms and threaten and intimidate other parties and other contestants free and fair elections can not be held, said the US Ambassador addressing a public function held in Batticaloa on Wednesday. The US Ambassador said,” Unchecked illegal paramilitary activity also discourages the prime investment that is badly needed to help the reconstruction process in the east”.

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[SAAG]

The Sri Lanka government has formally ended its ceasefire agreement signed in 2002 with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). It only regularises an existing state of war that had been going on since December 2005. It is a sad development because it shuts the door on the peace process sponsored by the Tokyo Donors Conference. While the four co-chairs of the Tokyo Conference — the EU, Japan, Norway and the US, can walk out of the peace process, India as a close strategic neighbour of Sri Lanka, India cannot afford to ignore the development. It will also face the fall out of yet another round of full scale war in Sri Lanka in some ways, because India-Sri Lanka relations have become closer than ever before.

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[IFJ]

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) calls on Sri Lanka’s Government and its President, Mahinda Rajapaksa, to take urgent action to protect the safety of journalists and uphold the rights of the media to report on issues of public interest. A serious deterioration in the press freedom environment and safety of journalists in Sri Lanka since January 2, when the Government formally withdrew from a ceasefire with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), is of grave concern to the IFJ and its local affiliates, the Free Media Movement (FMM), the Sri Lankan Working Journalists’ Association (SLWJA) and the Federation of Media Employees Trade Union (FMETU).

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[ACHR]

On 8 January 2008, the Sri Lankan Minister for Nation Building, DM Dassanayake was killed when his convoy was hit by a powerful roadside bomb blast allegedly planted by Liberation Tigers of Tami Eelam (LTTE) near the capital, Colombo. This killing follows the killing of LTTE’s Political wing chief S P Tamilselvam and Intelligence wing chief “Colonel” Charles by the Sri Lankan security forces. These deaths bring Sri Lanka’s escalating conflict into sharp focus. On 2 January 2008, the government of Sri Lanka formally withdrew from the Norwegian brokered Cease Fire Agreement (CFA).

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[VOA]

The Sri Lankan government has decided to formally withdraw from a cease-fire agreement with Tamil Tiger rebels.

Government officials say the country’s Cabinet decided to annul the 2002 Norwegian-brokered truce Wednesday, after a proposal from Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake.

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[BBC]

Sri Lanka’s parliamentarians from the ruling coalition and the opposition have accused the government of being responsible for killing Tamil MP, T Maheswaran. Colombo District United National Party (UNP) legislator T Maheswaran, has been shot dead at a Hindu temple in the capital, Colombo. Maheswaran, a former minister and an outspoken critic of government’s policy towards minority Tamils, was clinically dead when he was taken to the hospital, authorities told the BBC.

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[AFP]

An outspoken ethnic Tamil opposition MP was shot dead during a New Year service at a Hindu temple in the Sri Lankan capital Tuesday, the third assassination of a minority legislator in two years. Thiagarajah Maheswaran from the United National Party (UNP) was a vehement critic of the government’s escalating war against Tamil Tiger rebels and a campaigner for the rights of Tamils in the Sinhalese-majority island.

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