The controversial British broadcaster Channel 4 has decided to leave Sri Lanka due to “unacceptable intimidation” that prevents them from reporting, the channel’s news editor says.
source: Colombo Telegraph
The controversial British broadcaster Channel 4 has decided to leave Sri Lanka due to “unacceptable intimidation” that prevents them from reporting, the channel’s news editor says.
source: Colombo Telegraph
Sri Lanka’s bloody 25-year civil war earned the south Asian island a reputation as one of the world’s least safe places to be a journalist. Reporters faced extensive censorship and the threat of violence. Today, four years after the final defeat of the Tamil Tiger guerrillas, the government of charismatic, populist president Mahinda Rajapaksa argues that, with wartime restrictions lifted, the media are freer than at any time in a generation.
The reality is more complex. Threats and attacks on journalists continue, while organisations that monitor press freedoms, including the US civil liberties group Freedom House, say Sri Lanka now suffers from a subtler but no less extensive system of media control, marked by occasional violence, widespread intimidation and extensive self-censorship.
Via http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/3012db08-4613-11e3-b495-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2k82Tii5D
source: www.ft.com
CPJ research has shown that since the end of the civil war, President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s administration has failed to prosecute a single case of a murdered journalist, including the assassination of prominent newspaper editor Lasantha Wickramatunga in 2009. Many of the victims, like Wickramatunga, had reported on politically sensitive issues in ways that were critical of the government.
Sri Lanka remains a highly unsafe place for journalists to work, a circumstance that is exacerbated when killers have impunity. We ask that in formal and private meetings with President Rajapaksa, you urge him to ensure a credible, independent investigation into the cases of disappeared and murdered journalists, make the findings public, and efficiently prosecute the perpetrators in an effort to help reverse the pattern of impunity.
Via https://www.cpj.org/2013/11/chogm-leaders-should-urge-media-freedom-in-sri-lan.php
source: Committee to Protect Journalists
We share a report published by Tamil Against Genocide on media violence and the question of race and ethnicity of journalists/media employees in Sri Lanka.
Silencing-The-Press-Nov.06.2013
source: Tamil Against Genocide