President concerned about media

By Sumaiya Rizvi

President Mahinda Rajapaksa yesterday told Uthayan and Sudar Oli newspapers’ editor-in-chief that he was becoming increasingly concerned about the media industry because of the increasing attacks on the media.

Editor-in-chief E. Vidyatharan had spoken to the President yesterday morning to convey his fears for Uthayan and Sudar Oli and its employees.

“The President told me that because of the continued threats on the media he may be forced to take over the media ministry to look into the attacks on the media and the journalists,” Mr. Vidyatharan said.

He said the President had asked him to carry on his work and continue publishing the two newspapers.

“The president claimed that opposition politicians were behind these attacks and threats to harm his reputation,” Mr. Vidyatharan said and added that the President had invited him to work with the government in rebuilding and developing the North and the East.

Meanwhile Sudar Oli and Uthayan newspapers’ managing director E. Saravanabhavan said he had received he read the threatening letters that were given the news agents by two unidentified motor cyclists.

“They didn’t threaten us directly may be because of the heavy security personnel, but they used our agents to distribute the warning letters,” Mr. Saravanabhavan said.

He said the activities of the newspapers were disrupted for at least two days since the employees and journalists were frightened to come to work.

Mr. Saravanabhavan said that although they had been asked to shut down by yesterday they would not do so and our staff had returned to work though two advertising department employees had left us.

“For the past two days our 16-page newspapers had been reduced to six pages but we will now resume normal operations despite the June 30 deadline. And the warning that if we did not shut down by that date we will be killed,” Mr. Saravanabhavan said.

He said the warning letter accused the newspapers of being pro-terrorist and was spreading communal disharmony among the people.

“The army and police have stepped up their security patrols around our head office in Jaffna, so we hope we won’t have to face death,” Mr. Saravanabhavan said.

He said the warning letter had been addressesd by an organization calling itself the Tamil Alliance to Protect the Country and added that two employees were killed and badly injured two others when they were attacked by armed groups some time ago.

http://www.dailymirror.lk/DM_BLOG/Sections/frmNewsDetailView.aspx?ARTID=53449

SRI LANKA: Journalists Laying Aside Pens Once Again

By Feizal Samath

COLOMBO, Jun 30 (IPS) – Sri Lankan journalists are laying aside their pens once again and bracing for renewed confrontation with President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s government after the revival of the repressive Press Council and fresh attacks on the media.

The abduction and release of a journalist and the torching of newspapers by an unknown group last week exacerbated the crisis facing the media in Sri Lanka – which in March was listed as the fourth worst country in the Impunity Index of the U.S.-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).

The index is a compilation of countries where journalists are killed regularly and where governments fail to solve the crimes, the CPJ said.

In Sri Lanka, the state-appointed Press Council has the power to imprison or fine journalists for false and defamatory articles. The Press Council – which dealt with complaints from the public against media reports – went off the radar in 2002 after media organisations here set up the self-regulatory, industry-run Press Complaints Commission (PCC).

“The sword of Damocles is over our heads once again,” said Manik de Silva, a local newspaper editor and President of the Editors Guild representing local editors, referring to the re-activation of the Press Council after the government said last week it was appointed new members to this body.

“We are in trouble again,” exclaimed E. Saravanapavan, publisher of a Tamil- language newspaper group that has constantly faced attacks and threats, and whose newspapers were set on fire this week.

The crisis over the reactivation was followed by two other disturbing events last week.

Krishni Ifham, a journalist working for a website, was waylaid outside her home near Colombo, bundled in a van and questioned by an unknown group of people on her work. She was released later on the same day, several kilometres away.

On Friday morning, some 10,000 copies of Saravanapavan’s Udayan newspaper was seized from vans as they left the newspaper office in northern Jaffna for delivery, and destroyed by burning. Journalists said a group styled the ‘National Public Front’ had sent a letter to newspapers in Jaffna warning them against reports critical of the authorities.

Staff at Udayan have also been warned not to report for work after Jun. 30, while newspaper agents have been told not to sell the newspaper.

This comes just as Jaffna and other parts of the north prepare for local council elections in August – a measure announced by the government to restore civilian rule in the region after Tamil guerrillas and their leader Velupillai Prabhakaran were defeated by government troops last month ending nearly three decades of conflict.

The Editors’ Guild of Sri Lanka, the Newspaper Society of Sri Lanka and six national media organisations have written a letter to Rajapaksa urging him to reconsider the revival of the Press Council.

“A media culture cannot be based on slapping charges against journalists, fining them or sending them to jail. Instead the modern world has accepted a self-regulatory mechanism by media persons as the way forward,” the letter said.

The owner of a small newspaper, who declined to be named, said the effort to revive the Council is another attempt by the government to control the media. “If the Council is reactivated it would make the PCC redundant and all complaints to the Council would be essentially over articles criticising the government,” he said.

But senior government officials say the PCC has not been an effective medium for public complaints. “There were only a few complaints that were entertained last year,” a senior official at the Media Ministry, who declined to be named, said.

An official at the PCC rejected this claim saying the Commission received 93 complaints from the public and inquiries were held. In 2007, the Commission received 125 complaints.

The government official also said the cabinet last week approved the proposal to revive the Council as it felt society needed a more effective and independent mechanism to entertain complaints against the media from the public.

The Council has the powers of a District Court and can impose jail sentences of up to two years or fines. The government official said journalists need not worry about this, as since its creation in 1973, the Council has not enforced all its laws and has resorted only to requesting newspapers to apologise, if a complaint was valid, or to carry a correction.

Threats against the free press have been in existence for a long time but have increased over the past few years.

Fifteen journalists and media industry workers have been killed since 2006, while another 15 have been abducted or arrested by police, media organisations say. At least two newspaper offices have been ransacked and equipment destroyed. No one has been arrested, detained or blamed by the government in a single case despite ‘extensive investigations’ by state agencies.

Last year was a particularly difficult year for the media as journalists were told to refrain from criticising the government in the campaign against the rebels. Journalists were also barred from visiting war-torn areas and in recent times, visits to camps in the north for some 300,000 displaced persons are restricted and permitted only if accompanied by government officials.

International groups condemned the move to revive the Press Council – with the CPJ saying the “press council might sound innocuous enough, but it is the sort of tool we’ve seen in many countries where the government is intent on silencing critics.”

The International Federation of Journalists said the 1973 law is designed to protect governmental privileges, rather than serve any public purpose, such as the right of the people of Sri Lanka to be informed about the processes under which they are governed.

Journalists, in the letter to the President, said the self regulation process in 2002 was enforced only after a series of consultations between media associations in Sri Lanka and leaders of all political parties represented in Parliament “which culminated in broad, bi-partisan agreement being reached that the newspaper industry would appoint a self-regulatory mechanism as a ‘fair change’ for the repeal of laws relating to criminal defamation that were used as an instrument of government repression on media practitioners at the time.”

Although agreement was reached on self-regulation of the media, the Press Council was not abolished because there was disagreement within some media organisations – over personality issues – the privately-run Press Complaints Commission was not backed by all media outlets.

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=47419

Mervin Silva abuses Sirasa journalists

[TamilNet, Monday, 29 June 2009, 04:30 GMT]
Sri Lanka Minister of Labour Mervin Silva grabbed the microphone from Sirasa TV station reporters and threw it on the ground at an event held in Bandaranayake Memorial International Conference Hall (BMICH), alleging that Sirasa TV station and its journalists are traitors of the country, media sources in Colombo said. The event was organized to felicitate the journalists who covered the Vanni battle along with Sri Lanka Army.

Mervin Silva speaking at the event said that there was no second word that the journalists who worked hard to safeguard the sovereignty of the country should be honored. He added that the journalists of Sirasa TV station who had been working with the international community to degrade the self respect of the country and its independence do not deserve the honor.

Then Mervin Silva rushed to the Sirasa journalists who were present to cover the event and pulled down the microphone from them and threw it on the ground.

Media Minister Lakshman Abeywardene and other officials of the ruling party were present at the event when this incidence occurred.

In August 2008, five leading media associations along with political leaders and others staged a protest demonstration at Colpetty junction in Colombo, condemning Minister Mervin Silva’s assault on media persons who participated in the opening ceremony of Kelaniya flyover.

http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&artid=29676

Ethnic Tamil nationalist group threatens to kill newspaper staff in northern Sri Lanka

By Krishan Francis – 3 hours ago

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — An ethnic Tamil group has threatened to kill anyone working for or distributing a Tamil nationalist newspaper in northern Sri Lanka, accusing the paper of supporting the defeated Tamil Tiger rebels.

The group calling itself the Tamil Front Protecting the Country said in a note sent to newspaper dealers and obtained by The Associated Press that reporters and other staff, including the security guards, must quit the Uthayan newspaper by Tuesday.

The note, which the group called a “final warning,” also warns traders against selling the paper. The newspaper is published on the northern Jaffna peninsula – the cultural capital of the island’s ethnic minority Tamils – and supports self-rule for Tamils.

The Tamil Tiger rebel group fought in a decades-long civil war that ended last month when the military finally crushed the insurgents’ quest for an independent state.

“Uthayan has been a propaganda organ for terror activities. Since you have ignored our previous warnings, we are forced not to allow newspapers that mislead the people,” the group said in the note, which was written in the Tamil language. “Those who ignore this will be subjected to the death penalty.”

The Tamil Front Protecting the Country was unknown until last week, when it delivered a statement condemning the rebels to the offices of newspapers in Jaffna and gave strict orders for it to be published. Days later armed attackers ambushed newspaper delivery men and torched thousands of copies of three papers whose editors had refused to print the statement.

It is not known who the leaders of the group are or what its goals are. No one had signed the statements.

Uthayan newspaper’s publisher E. Saravanapavan said he did not know who was behind the threat. He said a lot of workers have been absent since the threat and he has asked police for security assurances.

Uthayan’s staff has repeatedly faced threats and violence, the most serious in 2006 when gunmen stormed its offices and killed two staffers.

Its editor was arrested earlier this year on alleged rebel links but released in two months by a court that said there was no evidence to charge him.

According to Amnesty International, at least 14 journalists and staff at news outlets have been killed by suspected government paramilitaries and rebels since the beginning of 2006. Others have been detained, tortured or have disappeared and 20 more have fled the country because of death threats, it said.

-http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5ieFedl5h2U9R6FXwsWAZexKEhrsA

Democracy in peril – Sunday Times editorial

For a Government on a tidal wave of popularity, backed by a largely friendly media, the re-activation of the draconian 1973 Press Council Law which has the powers to send publishers and journalists to jail must surely mean that it sees imaginary demons ahead.

The immediate reaction from the country’s eight most influential media unions of publishers, editors, working journalists, workers and activists has been one of shock, resentment, opposition and to a great degree, disappointment.

Here was a President who prided himself on being a progressive politician. As an Opposition politician, he waxed eloquent – like all Opposition politicians do – on behalf of media freedom. In power and place, he maintained a stony silence when his then ‘Boss’ dragged journalists to court like a serial litigant, but quietly empathised with the victims. They, in-turn were sympathetic to his cause while he climbed to the zenith of the greasy pole of politics. Has he, alas, gone the same way as all politicians do?

So, why is the government jittery? Has the President abandoned his progressive credentials by back-peddling to an era that was left behind in 2002 with the deactivation of the statutory Press Council for a self-regulatory Press Complaints Commission? What is the insecurity that bedevils him and his government?

This archaic law’s provisions effectively ban the reporting of matters as sweeping as those that can be deemed by the Council to be detrimental to the economy of the country – like monetary, exchange-control matters (like the negotiations for the IMF loan for instance); the reporting of cabinet proceedings; use contempt proceedings against journalists; mete out punishment for any advertisement which is “calculated to injure public morality”; “any matter” that is prejudicial to ‘national security’ etc.

The re-activation of the Press Council was not even made public until the media associations heard about it, and protested this week. The lame explanations by the two Ministers of Information and Media have not helped.

They say the Press Council was re-activated because the Parliamentary Committee COPE asked why the Press Council office was functioning if the Council itself was not. They say the Press Complaints Commission is an independent ‘NGO’ and can remain side-by-side with the Press Council. Typically, they politicise the whole issue and say that the solitary UNP MP did not object to the re-activation of the Press Council, etc.

Media practitioners are not interested in the partisan politics of this issue. Of all people, it is an MP who was in the UNP once who is even making this statement. We all know that the UNP despite its vehement objections to the Press Council did nothing to abolish it in its entire 17 years in office from 1977-94.

This is a national issue that impacts on all citizens of this country. This Law was set aside (though not repealed) in 2002 by the unanimous vote of Parliament. It was a bi-partisan apolitical decision taken by all political parties. The President was then the Leader of the Opposition, and the two Media Ministers were Members of Parliament. The whole House voted together. All political parties agreed after much consultation, to a process whereby the newspapers of this country would abide by a voluntary self-regulatory system which was later put into motion in 2003. And now, the Government has secretly reneged on that agreement without consulting the stakeholders – the media and the public.

The modern democratic world is moving away from regulating the media, instead giving space to free speech and expression and the exchange of ideas and information; opening new vistas of knowledge. While the world moves ahead with Information Technology, and laws like the Freedom of Information Act, Sri Lanka has opted to propel backwards to a controversial Law of 36 years ago.

The Government’s act is a stab in the back not only to the media but to the citizenry. The Press Council is meant to have a ‘chilling effect’ on media freedom; it is the proverbial ’sword of Damocles’ hanging over the head of the media practitioner.
The Press Complaints Commission indeed has shortcomings, but also strengths. For one, it costs neither the State nor the complainant any money. It is free, fast and fair to all parties, unlike the time-consuming, costly Press Council. It has the broad acceptance of the newspaper industry and complaints are, by-and-large, settled by means of conciliation and mediation like in the days of ancient Lanka and the days of the ‘Gam Sabhawa’. Wrong-doers were cautioned and reprimanded, and matters settled amicably. Journalists were slowly, but surely veering round to accepting a Code of Ethics that was to govern how and what they wrote.

Media practitioners are, in many ways, representatives of the people. Their job is to keep the citizenry informed. If they err – and to err is human, but there are democratic ways of rectifying their mistakes. The citizenry themselves must realise that these measures are in a sense directed at them as well. Very soon information – to them, will dry up.

One of the Media Ministers said that they don’t need the Press Council to send journalists to jail – they can use Emergency Regulations, as if they are not using those ‘laws’ for that purpose.

The fact that journalists and media activists have had to flee this country because they cannot practise their profession is known to the whole wide world. Not a week passes without some journalist or media institution facing a threat, abduction in a white van, an assault at a bus-stand or visit by the police or politically instigated goons.

The press finds the contradictions in the President’s style of governance, hard to accept. Some harshly label it ‘a Jekyll and Hyde’ approach while others refer to it as a ‘carrot (or egg-hoppers) and stick’ approach. These un-democratic moves are totally un-becoming of the President, and the re-introduction of the Press Council betrays a gloomy picture for the future of post-’war’ Sri Lanka, and questions are being raised if there is ‘deep state’ syndrome in Sri Lanka.

The country is clearly drifting towards a regimented state which brooks no dissent. Is it merely a façade of democracy that we are going to have in a future Sri Lanka?

- http://www.sundaytimes.lk/090628/Editorial.html

Grave threat to DEMOCRACY – Sunday Times

In 1973 when the draconian Press Council Bill was passed in Parliament an independent English language newspaper headlined it—“ Mephistopheles claims the soul”—referring to the evil spirit to whom Faust sold his soul in the 19th century German legend.

Last week this law was reactivated setting off alarm bells as to whether Sri Lanka was going back to the era of the infamous D. E.M.O’ CRACY. obituary, and the cremation of the father of Truth and Liberty.

On this page today we spotlight the stinging protest by 8 media organizations including publishers and editors over the reactivation of the dreaded law, the continuing white van abduction and arrest of journalists.

Journalist was taken in van from Wattala to Kandy – ABDUCTION

Journalist and NGO employee Krishni Kandasamy, the most recent victim of media harassment, said she had worried about how her disappearance would affect her mother’s health all the while she was being held by her abductors.

“My mother is in the habit of calling me at office several times a day,” she said. “I knew how anxious she would be the moment she heard I had not turned up at the office. I begged my abductors to allow me to tell my mother that I was okay.”

Ms. Kandasamy, a resident of Wattala, Colombo, was abducted last week by three men in civilian clothes who claimed to be policemen. She was driven to an unknown destination and questioned. When she was finally dropped off, she found herself in Kandy, from where she had to find her way back to Colombo.

She said she had stepped into the street to head to work when she was stopped by three men in a van who told her she was required to give a statement to the police. When she insisted that she had to inform her mother first, she was forced into the van and driven away.

“It was then around 8.30 am. It was around 2.45 in the afternoon when I was taken to a room for questioning. During the long drive, I had no idea where I was being taken,” Ms. Kandasamy said.
Because she kept saying she had to call her mother to say she was safe, she was finally allowed to make the call, just before she was led in for questioning.

“They let me make the call from my mobile phone. I told my mother I had been taken in by the police for questioning and that she need not worry. When she asked where the police station was, I said I did not know. I was about to tell her to inform my husband when the phone was taken away from me.”

Her mother then called Mrs. Kandasamy’s husband, Ifam Nisam, also a journalist, and a few others, who immediately started calling police stations in the Wattala area. None of the stations said that anyone by the name of Kandasamy was being detained.

After being questioned about her work, Ms. Kandasamy was led back to the van and driven for more than two hours before being finally dropped off in Kandy.

“I told the men I had no money to take a bus. They gave me Rs. 200 and asked me to go home. I got into a bus and called my husband and told him what had happened,” she said.

The police have deployed two teams of investigators to follow up on the incident, according to police spokesman Ranjith Gunasekara.

90 day detention order for astrologer – ARREST

Police have obtained an order to detain for 90 days an astrologer who predicted bad times for President Mahinda Rajapaksa. Chandrasiri Bandara who contributes an astrological column to the Sinhala weeky Iriduna was apprehended after the prediction was published in the paper’s June 18 edition.

He had stated that Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake would be made President of the country in September this year, while the Opposition Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe would become the Prime Minister of the country.

It is learnt that the police were keen to know how he had made such a prediction that slighted the head of state. The UNP has charged that the government was now attempting to control even astrologers while moving towards a dictatorship.

“We welcome the military successes but we do not approve the dictatorial acts committed on the strength of these successes,” UNP General Secretary Tissa Attanayake said.

Ultimatum for Jaffna newspaper

Newspaper agents in Jaffna received an unsigned letter yesterday demanding the closure of the Jaffna newspaper “Uthayan” at the end of the month.

The letter said the agents should not sell the newspaper and the Uthayan staff should not report to work after June 30.

The matter had been brought to the notice of the army and police in Jaffna. The threat comes less than three days after some 6,000 copies of Tamil language newspapers, including the Uthayan, were burnt in Jaffna town.

This is not the time to charge, fine and jail journalists – PROTEST

Eight media organisations in Sri Lanka have called on President Mahinda Rajapaksa to reconsider the re-activation of the Sri Lanka Press Council Law under which journalists could be fined or jailed.The organisations have sent a joint memorandum to President Rajapaksa about the Government’s move.
The full statement is as follows:

“It is with a sense of deep concern and disappointment that the media organisations herein under mentioned have learned of the re- activation of the Sri Lanka Press Council Law No 5 of 1973 which has the power to fine and/or sentence journalists and publishers to terms of imprisonment. A media culture cannot be based on slapping charges against journalists, fining them or sending them to jail. Instead the modern world has accepted a self-regulatory mechanism by media persons themselves as the way forward. The Sri Lanka Press Council Law has a controversial history. It was meant to have a ‘chilling effect’ on media freedom, which included the power, inter-alia, to send journalists and publishers to jail.

“ On October 13, 1994 by Cabinet Paper No. 94.11.009, Your Excellency gave your consent to establish a self regulatory mechanism in place of the Statutory Press Council. It is our understanding that this consent was given because Your Excellency believed the Press Council which could impose penal punishment on journalists was an archaic piece of legislation and self regulation was a more democratic means of regulating the press.

“Your Excellency will remember that as Honourable Leader of the Opposition, you spoke (Hansard 2002 June 18 Col 888) for an independent and responsible press in Sri Lanka when an amendment was brought to the said Law to repeal the laws relating to criminal defamation. Your Excellency is no doubt aware this amendment was passed unanimously by Parliament. Following the passage of the amendment the Sri Lanka Press Council Law was made inoperative in or about 2003.

“A series of consultations between media associations in Sri Lanka and leaders of all political parties represented in Parliament had culminated in broad, bi-partisan agreement being reached that the newspaper industry would appoint a self regulatory mechanism as a ‘fair exchange’ for the repeal of laws relating to criminal defamation that were used as an instrument of government repression on media practitioners at the time. Consequently, media organizations united, and together with the newspaper industry, established the Press Complaints Commission of Sri Lanka, under the provisions of the Arbitration Act No. 11 of 1995, six years ago. Unlike the Press Council, the Press Complaints Commission is no financial burden to the State or the complainant.

“It is in these circumstances that the media organizations regret that the Government has reneged on its earlier commitment to support self-regulation. Furthermore, our disappointment stems from the fact that the Government did not consider it useful, or prudent, or both, to have any dialogue whatsoever with the under-mentioned media organisations, which represent the vast majority of publishers, editors, working journalists, media trade unionists and activists who overwhelmingly support the Press Complaints Commission of Sri Lanka.

However, if any problem exists with respect to the system of self-regulation, such problem(s) should be discussed and resolved immediately. But it’s indeed disconcerting to note that instead of strengthening the systems of self-regulation, the Government has opted to re-activate the Sri Lanka Press Council law No 5 of 1973 which impedes media freedom in Sri Lanka.

“We, the undermentioned media organisations urge the Government to reconsider this ill advised decision and have a dialogue with us, the stake-holders to promote self-regulation as part of media culture in the interest of democracy and a responsible and free press in Sri Lanka.

In view of the public importance of this matter we will be releasing this letter to the media.”

Sri Lanka Working Journalists’ Association,
Sri Lanka Tamil Media Alliance
Sri Lanka Muslim Media Forum
Federation of Media Employees’ Trade Unions
South Asian Free Media Association (Sri Lanka Chapter)
Free Media Movement
Newspaper Society of Sri Lanka
The Editors’ Guild of Sri Lanka

This must stop: SLPI

The Sri Lanka Press Institute yesterday said it was deeply disturbed about the re-appearance of the dreaded white van to abduct journalist Krishni Ifham (Kandasamy). She was bundled into the white van outside her mother’s Wattala home and driven apparently to Kandy by three people (the driver and two others) who she believed were policemen as they told her they wanted a statement from her.

This young mother of two who works for the Inter News, a media development institution, had at the end of her long ordeal been asked some questions about her previous employment in the Panos office in Colombo. She was then dropped off at the Kandy bus stand with Rs. 200 bus fare to get home to Wattala, a statement from the SLPI said.

She first lodged a complaint with the Wattala police and thereafter at the Kiribathgoda police station as requested by the police, as the area she lives in comes under the jurisdiction of the latter.

“The SLPI has no quarrel with the journalist, like any other citizen, being questioned by a legitimate law enforcement agency in connection with any investigation that is underway. If this was the case, she could have been requested to report to a specified police station or even taken there with a chaperone, and any questions that needed answers asked and a statement duly recorded, the SLPI said.

But why a white van and, presumably, a drive to Kandy? The victim does not know exactly where she was taken because there were curtains on the van and she could not see where it was heading. She presumes it was Kandy because she was eventually dropped off at the Kandy bus stand, the Institute said.

According to the SLPI statement Ms. Ifham says she was in no way harassed, was given a bun and a sachet of milk and questioned in a civilized manner. No statement, however, had been recorded. As this is being written, nothing further has been heard about this matter and there had been neither an admission nor denial of the suspicion that an agency of the state was involved.

Other more serious cases including the killing of Sunday Leader editor Lasantha Wickramatunga followed by an assault on Rivira editor Upali Tennakoon, and more recently, assaulting and breaking Lake House journalist Poddala Jayantha’s leg, remain unsolved. There is a strong perception both locally and overseas that the harassment of journalists bears a State imprimatur. Such will be the general belief until it is proved otherwise, the statement added.

“We stress with all the emphasis at our command that this must stop. If an agency of the State is in fact involved, those responsible must be brought to account. If not, whoever is engaging in such actions is clearly intent on falsely implicating the State and must be urgently brought to book,” the SLPI said.

“The war against terror is now thankfully over. But there have been too many incidents involving journalists to discount an attempt at creating a fear psychosis in the media and preventing the airing of subjects that may be unpalatable to some in authority. This must stop,” the SLPI said.

http://www.sundaytimes.lk/090628/News/sundaytimesnews_16.html

The return of the white van – The Island editorial

The return of the white van, as evidenced by last Wednesday’s ordeal of journalist Krishni Ifham who was bundled into one and driven to Kandy, asked some questions by her abductors – that is what they were – before they dropped her off at the Kandy bus stand to get back home having given her Rs. 200 to pay her fare, raises many disturbing issues. By the victim’s own account there has been no rough housing or harassment. She had been well treated while she was in the custody of whoever took her; they had even given her a fish bun and a sachet of milk to ward off any pangs of hunger. While we commend the civilized conduct of whoever took her into their custody, that does not in any way mitigate from the outrage that had been committed.

Ifham, who once worked for the Virakesari, the Tamil language daily, currently works for an agency called Internews which is into media development. She had previously worked for the Colombo office of Panos South Asia, an NGO which describes itself as an organization that “encourages and facilitates public discourse and debate on a wide range of issues, particularly those that have a direct impact on the least privileged and most marginalized sectors of society.’’ Panos works with the media in many matters and recently attracted attention from security related agencies as well as a parliamentary select committee that probed its activities. However, as far as is publicly known, the authorities have not faulted the organization for any acts of omission and commission. From all accounts, the questions directed at Ifham, had focused on Panos and her employment in that organization although other ground too had been covered. If an official agency was in fact responsible for taking this young mother of two to Kandy from Wattala to ask her some questions about her previous employer, to say the least this is conduct that is not only reprehensible but also unacceptable.

We have said so before and we repeat that journalists are not above the law. There is nothing sacrosanct about working for a media organization and if it is necessary for a law enforcement agency to ask a media person any legitimate question or questions relating to an ongoing investigation, it is perfectly in order that they are asked and statements recorded. It is of course open to a journalist to decline on ethical grounds to reveal sources of information and conflicts on this score between law enforcers and journalists are not uncommon both here and abroad. According to the police spokesman, as far as he knows, neither the police nor military were responsible for Ifham’s few hours in somebody’s custody – whoever that somebody may have been. The self-same spokesman said as much some weeks ago when a Tamil newspaper editor was dragged out of a funeral parlour where he was attending a relatives obsequies and bundled into, yes, a white van. This version changed later when it was established that the editor had in fact been taken to custody by the military and thereafter handed over to the Terrorism Investigation Division of the police. He was held in custody for several weeks and thereafter released.

In a front page editorial published yesterday our sister paper, The Island, made the point that the government may deny any hand in Wednesday’s incident but nobody would believe such denials. Who else but an agent of the state would dare engage in such a brazen act and drive past dozens of checkpoints from a suburb of Colombo right up to Kandy with a young woman they had abducted inside their vehicle? And who but an organization investigating Panos will want to ask questions about that organization from a former employee? This is only the latest of many such white van abductions, not one of which has been solved. Who then can blame the public for reaching the obvious conclusion? The victim in this case being a web-based journalist, fellow professionals are naturally concerned about yet another incident that aggravates the ever-growing climate of repression of the media. What is particularly sad about it all is that it is totally unnecessary. If Ifham had to be questioned, she could have been summoned to a police station, or taken to one properly chaperoned as the Sri Lanka Press Institute had said in a statement we publish today, and her statement duly recorded. We say this, of course, on the assumption that a state agency was involved in the abduction.

If this was not so, it is even more frightening. That would imply that some extra-legal authority or gang intent on besmirching the reputation of the government is roaming our streets. If this be so, it is all the more important that the government and its various agencies should get to the bottom of the whole business, arrest the perpetrators and haul them up before the law. But investigations concerning recent attacks on the media and media professionals have led nowhere. Lasantha Wickrematunga was murdered in broad daylight in an area where there was a strong military and police presence and all that those working on the case have been able to do up to now is to arrest somebody who had stolen his mobile phone. Upali Tennakoon, the editor of the Rivira, a Sinhala Sunday paper run by no less than a relative of President Mahinda Rajapaksa, was thereafter brutally attacked while driving to work. To borrow police jargon, there has still been no “breakthrough.’’ Ditto in the case of Poddala Jayantha, Secretary of the Working Journalists Association who had a leg broken by some toughs. The list of such unsolved cases is endless and Krishni Ifham believes that it will be the same where she is concerned. Meanwhile several media people, some who were physically attacked and others who are convinced that they risk the same fate, have fled the country and are afraid to return.

The war is over and extra-legal measures that the authorities may have had to rightly or wrongly resort to in the broader national interest are no longer necessary. But those who may have used such tactics with impunity – as well as a measure of justification – to counter a ruthless terrorist group may find it convenient to continue them, perhaps at the behest of their masters. This is a dangerous tendency and if the political establishment does not use its authority to crack down hard on such a development, there will be a serious erosion of the human rights of the Lankan people and the democratic fabric of the country.

http://www.island.lk/2009/06/28/editorial.html

Persecuted- sunday leader editorial

Unlike Lasantha I do not intend to write my last editorial and have it published after my death. I know this is a dramatic statement to make but the need of the hour calls for just that.

Apart from my professional work, I have a life. I am a good parent. I have tried never to let my work stand in the way of my being a good mother. I laugh. I show up. I listen.

I am a good friend and them to me. I am loved and I love in return. Without my family and friends I would have nothing to say to you today.

Ever since I took over from Lasantha at The Sunday Leader I am frequently asked why I do it. My response is similar as was Lasantha’s. It’s not that I am stuck for options. My entire family are British passport holders – only I and my two sons remain on Sri Lankan passports. I am proud to do so and have never wanted or tried to change my citizenship. Even the hassle of securing visas does not deter me. I love this country – this is my motherland – and my eldest son who is 16 insists that while he may go overseas to university he will come back. “This is my home” he has told me – “And I love it.”

In similar vein, nobody at The Sunday Leader is stuck for options. Yet, we do it. Why? We all have a conscience. We all remain committed. To all of us at this newspaper journalism is not just a job. It is a vocation. We all approach our work with passion and commitment. For none of us is journalism merely a means to a pay packet.

We all are clear in our minds that one day we can go to meet our Maker – with a clear conscience.

In all the years that I have associated with The Sunday Leader – for all of its 15 years – I was one of the first to write for the paper when it began in 1994 – there is a single factor that has never failed to impress me. It has humbled me. Sometimes it has moved me to tears. And that is the team spirit which has bound the staff of this newspaper for a decade and a half.

The many occasions this newspaper has come under attack has failed to dent that spirit. In fact, it is just that which has bound staff at The Sunday Leader – strengthened ties and firmly secured bonds.

Since this newspaper began there has been a culture of impunity and indifference over killings and attacks on journalists. The Sunday Leader has lived through trying times as successive governments attempted to stifle its voice – crush its spirit and literally burn the very edifices upon which it functioned.

When Lasantha was finally shot dead in January this year it was not the first time he had been fired at. On a previous occasion his house was shot at – but he and everyone else in his home escaped unhurt.

But perhaps it is the first in the 20 years that I, as a journalist have seen a total paralysis of the media community after the Sirasa/MTV station at Depanama, Pannipitiya was burnt down on January 6th this year, followed two days later by the killing of Lasantha.

The culture of impunity – propagated by the fact that in all the cases of attacks against the media and assassinations of reporters (11 in the last two years) there have been few if no serious investigations by the authorities and none of the killers have been brought to trial.

This has led to an almost total blackout of independent and objective reporting in this country.

I for one, having covered the ethnic conflict for 20 years – having repeatedly reported from the north and east – from the battlefront, from the Tigers former lair and from almost every horrific suicide attack – am tremendously grateful to this government for having finally wiped out the scourge of terrorism from this country.

As a mother of two sons, the youngest of whom is only three years old – I constantly fretted that my children would be compelled to grow up in a country that was wracked with civil strife – and worse – terrorism. I used to have dreams and worry myself sick that my older son would get caught up in a bomb blast, to or from school.

That the Rajapakse brothers actually did it – they effectively managed a military onslaught against the Tamil Tigers, is not only heroic but a success I for one will be eternally grateful for.

I may not fully agree with the methods they resorted to – but I can be no judge or preach military strategy. Certainly not, when it is a fight against terror.

But what I fail to comprehend and find tragic is that despite a heroic and successful military victory against terrorism, the top political leadership of this country has propelled forward a hostile environment of intolerance which has created a culture of impunity and indifference making each day a hunting season for attacks on media staff.

This, I will continue to fight against. And I speak with one voice for all at The Sunday Leader. Our differing viewpoints do not make me or any of the journalists at this newspaper traitors. In fact, it is our patriotism – our love for this country — tested over a period of 15 years – that make us continue to do what we do.

I firmly believe that journalists who report the facts as they are known are not subversives. When reporters can work and report freely, society is not threatened. In fact it is made stronger and more confident.

On Thursday, June 25, all the local newspapers of Jaffna that defied publishing an anonymous and defiling notice against the LTTE came under attack by an armed group in the early hours. The notice was brought out in the name of ‘Tamil Front Protecting the Country’ allegedly linked to a paramilitary group operating within Colombo. Thousands of copies of the local newspapers, Valampuri, Uthayan and Thinakkural (Jaffna edition), were burnt in huge flames by an armed group at Aanaippanthi and Kannathiddi junctions at 5 a.m. Thursday, while the newspapers were being taken for distribution. The distribution workers were also brutally attacked.

Again on Thursday a freelance contributor who wrote the astrological column in our sister paper the Irudina was taken in by the CID and questioned for over 24 hours. His crime, allegedly predicting a bad period for the government and a good period for Opposition Leader, Ranil Wickremesinghe. A prediction, one would think, that only Ranil Wickremesinghe would have believed.

It appears that anyone believed or suspected of conveying messages that are critical of the government are not only “traitors” but “terrorists” too. Government ministers have not ceased to use inflammatory language against journalists and media institutions. This has led to widespread self-censorship among journalists in order to protect their lives.

For example, Iqbal Athas, Defence Correspondent for The Sunday Times says he stopped writing his weekly column as a result of threats. Athas also reports from Colombo for CNN and is a correspondent for Jane’s Defence Weekly.

Even if this government is not directly responsible for the attacks on journalists, it has created the conditions for such persecution with impunity. Government spokesmen continue their attacks on journalists naming them as “traitors” and “security risks.”

It was in February this year that Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake in a local TV news bulletin referring to the prospect of capturing the LTTE leader alive said, that if Prabhakaran had been a “girl” the soldiers could have “touched” or “fiddled with” her body! What is absolutely frightening here is that not only is the Prime Minister of the country in a position to make comments of this nature in public but that no one seems to have seen anything wrong in the Prime Minister’s remarks.

This is the crux of the matter. Civil society in this country is dead. The main opposition United National Party is yet to awake from the long snooze it is in. There is a general sense of apathy – the majority stakeholders in this country will do nothing to ensure that freedom of expression, democratic rights, fundamental and human rights are protected.

In this backdrop, no journalist perceived to be contradicting the work of the Establishment will be tolerated. Even if such contradictions lead towards a better, more stable and peaceful society.

This maybe the practice in lands such as Israel, whose cruelty in anti-Palestine offensives is well known to the world. In the post 9-11 context, the fight against terrorism and the concern over national and international security have resulted in detention centres, torture chambers, sexual abuse of prisoners and many other brutal violations of basic human rights.

If we are to look for comparisons, military reporting all through the Iraq war was identical to war reporting in Sri Lanka. Any alternative voice or voice of dissent was never tolerated.

We could only surmise that this government best understood the rash strategies of the war against terrorism adopted by the former Bush administration.

We can only hope that they did not forget to look at what happened thereafter. There were repercussions, the benefits of which are being reaped today in the United States of America.

- http://www.thesundayleader.lk/20090628/editorial-.htm

Lasantha killling – Police again fail to submit report

The police have so far failed to submit the investigation report into the murder of the Editor in Chief of The Sunday Leader Lasantha Wickrematunge.
When Wickrematunge’s murder trial was taken up on Thursday, June 25 at the Mt. Lavinia Magistrate’s Court, the Mirihana Police failed to turn up in courts although they had been ordered to submit the investigation report.
Police Spokesperson SSP Ranjith Gunasekera told The Sunday Leader that the investigation teams have not updated him on the present investigation progress and added that the investigation teams do not want to reveal the details to the media as it could hamper the ongoing investigation process.
The murder trial of Wickrematunge will be taken up again on July 9.
Meanwhile , the Freedom of the Press Committee in a letter last week to President Mahinda Rajapakse has said that they hoped the end of the civil war would be accompanied by a relaxation of the government’s harsh and myopic treatment of Sri Lankan journalists.
The letter said, “U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, has called on your government to ensure the prosecution of those responsible for the murder of Lasantha Wickrematunge on January 8. He was editor-in-chief of the independent newspaper, The Sunday Leader, and had been outspokenly critical of government attacks on the press. In his last editorial, he foresaw his own death at the hands of the government.”
Copies of the letter were also forwarded to Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake Mass Media Minister Anura Priyadarshana Yapa, Human Rights Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe and Inspector General of Police Victor Perera among others.
http://www.thesundayleader.lk/20090628/NEWS.HTM#Police

Repression, thy colour is white!

There seems to be no end to the much dreaded `white van` operations against the media. The latest victim is journalist Krishni Ifham, wife of one of The Island staffers. She was waylaid near her residence in Wattala on Wednesday morning, bundled into a white van and taken all the way to Kandy. She was interrogated on her professional work for hours before being released in the evening.

Journalists are not an infallible lot. There are serious allegations against some of them. The government insists that terrorists had some media persons on their payroll. (But, it won`t substantiate its claim!) INGOs and NGOs have heavily infiltrated the Sri Lankan media and made handmaidens of some journalists to further their sinister interests. Therefore, if there are complaints against media personnel, they must be interrogated and, if needs be, even prosecuted and punished. Why should extra judicial methods be used to deal with them?

The government may deny its involvement in Wednesday`s incident but nobody is going to believe it. Who will dare abduct a woman in Wattala and take her all the way to Kandy passing so many army and police checkpoints, unless they have the blessings of the powers that be? None of the abductors freely moving about in white vans like the brainwashed `Dogs` of Ivan the Terrible who rode black horses has yet been nabbed.

If `white vans` are operating without the knowledge of the government, as it claims, the situation is all the more frightening. If that really is the case, then the government must make an all out effort to apprehend the white van Mafiosi for its own sake more than the safety of journalists. For, those capable of carrying out such criminal acts with impunity must be running a parallel government. (They may even take over the country at this rate!)

But, the government has unfortunately taken the white van menace for granted. For a government that hunted down Prabhakaran and his confederates, tracking down the `white van` operators must be child`s play. The fact that it does not care to do so is indicative of its connivance, if not direct involvement in the violent campaign against the media.

Now that the war is over, it is incumbent upon the government to stop tilting at windmills and take immediate steps to facilitate the demilitarisation process if people are to benefit from the defeat of terrorism. Opening a front against the media is not the way to set about it. A cabal of hoity-toity elements exuding hubris and anti-media venom seems to be hell bent on eliminating democratic dissent under the pretext of anti-terror operations. They are only engaged in a self-defeating exercise.

The only way the government could clear its name is to investigate attacks on media persons and bring the perpetrators to justice without further delay. Let no lame excuses be trotted out!

- http://www.lankanewspapers.com/news/2009/6/45289.html