[Committee to Protect Journalists]

Sri Lanka’s journalists are under intensive assault. Authorities have failed to carry out effective and credible investigations into the killing of journalists who question the government’s conduct of a war against Tamil separatists or criticize the military establishment. Three attacks in January targeting the mainstream media drew the world’s attention to the problem, but top journalists have been killed, attacked, threatened, and harassed since the government began to pursue an all-out military victory over the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in late 2006. Many local and foreign journalists and members of the diplomatic community believe the government is complicit in the attacks.

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[Reuters]

The United States said it was “appalled” by violence against journalists in Sri Lanka, after an editor was stabbed on Friday, the third attack on the country’s media this month. “The United States is appalled by continuing physical attacks and threats against media personnel in Sri Lanka,” State Department acting spokesman Robert Wood said in a statement. “These serious reports are disturbing indicators of the deteriorating atmosphere for media independence in Sri Lanka.” “We call on the government of Sri Lanka to protect all of its citizens by enforcing law and order, preventing intimidation of the media, and by conducting swift, full and credible investigations into attacks on journalists and other civilians,” the State Department said.

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[RSF]

Reporters Without Borders is concerned about the fate of five Tamil journalists arrested by anti-terrorist police in Colombo in the past six days and urges the Sri Lankan authorities to explain why they are being held. “The anti-terrorist police are accusing the journalists of receiving money from the Tamil Tiger rebels, but after investigating, we can confirm that the funds in question came from a German foundation and from Tamil exiles,” the press freedom organisation said. “We condemn the fact the some of these journalists were badly beaten during their first few days in detention, and that this was clearly done to extract confessions from them.”

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[IFJ]

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) calls on the Government of Sri Lanka to uphold the legal rights of seven journalists who were taken in for questioning by Sri Lanka’s Terrorist Investigations Department (TID) between March 6 and 8. The journalists were not permitted to notify their families of their whereabouts. The Free Media Movement (FMM), an IFJ affiliate, reported that some of the journalists, most of whom are associated with the news and features website www.outreachsl.com, were held incommunicado for hours.

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[IFJ]

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) is appalled at another attempt to intimidate journalists working for the state-owned television broadcaster Sri Lanka Rupavahini Corporation (SLRC) since a violent altercation at the SLRC offices was instigated by a government minister in December. According to the Free Media Movement (FMM), an IFJ affiliate, the Assistant Director of News Camera at SLRC, Priyal Ranjith Perera, was reportedly threatened at his home in Pitakotte by a gang of four men who attempted to attack him with a knife.

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[IFJ]

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) unequivocally condemns actions by senior Sri Lankan police to intimidate, abuse and humiliate journalists who report in the public interest. The Free Media Movement (FMM), an IFJ affiliate, reports that a senior police officer, Inspector Mahesh Perera, abused and assaulted Sugath Dharmapriya, a news producer of Derana TV, who was reporting from the scene of a bomb blast in Colombo on February 23.

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[IFJ]

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) calls on Sri Lanka’s Inspector General of Police, Victor Perera, to investigate cases of harassment of journalists by members of the police and the Civil Defence Committees (CDC) and to prohibit authorities’ interference in the professional duties of journalists. In a letter to Mr Perera today, the IFJ expressed grave concern about reports from its affiliate, the Free Media Movement (FMM), that several incidents involving attacks on journalists or abuse of the rights of journalists have been instigated by police and CDC members.

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[Amnesty International]

A number of journalists in Sri Lanka have received death threats in the wake of knife attacks on two journalists in the past eleven days. Lal Hemantha Mawalage, a leading news producer with the state-run Sri Lanka Rupavahini Corporation (SLRC), was stabbed in the southern city of Athurugiriya on the night of Friday 25 January. Four days later, the Colombo-based Free Media Movement reported that five persons entered the Colombo home of Suhaib M Kasim, the associate editor of the Sri Lankan state-owned Tamil daily Thinakaran. They forcibly took him to his veranda and stabbed him in his abdomen.

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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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