Journalists trying to cover fate of Tamils threatened, obstructed- RSF

Journalists trying to cover fate of Tamils threatened, obstructed

SOURCE: Reporters sans frontières (RSF), Paris

(RSF/IFEX) – Reporters Without Borders is extremely worried about the statements made by Sri Lankan officials, including army commander Gen.
Sarath Fonseka, that journalists who visited areas formerly controlled by the Tamil Tiger rebels will be prosecuted.

At the same time, access to refugee camps and Tamil areas in general is still severely regulated, preventing the press from obtaining information about the fate of the Tamil population. Journalists and witnesses who dared to speak out have been intimidated and arrested.

“The war is over,” Reporters Without Borders said. “There is no longer any reason for the army to impose so many restrictions on media working in the Tamil areas, including restrictions on access to refugee camps. The United Nations – which deliberately minimised the suffering of Tamil civilians, according to the French newspaper ‘Le Monde’ – should make an effort to obtain unrestricted access to refugee camps for the press and humanitarian aid workers.”

A humanitarian aid worker said: “At the checkpoints installed on the roads leading to Tamil areas, soldiers always ask the same question: ‘What are you going to do there?’” Journalists are turned back if they lack official authorisation. The few foreign journalists who have covered the Tamil camps have been targeted by the government. A TV crew working for Britain’s Channel 4 was expelled.

Most of the Sri Lankan media have not sent reporters to the Tamil areas.
The press have only managed to get into these areas when there have been visits by Sri Lankan and international officials such as UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon. The International Committee of the Red Cross
(ICRC) has not been allowed to visit some detention camps.

Reporters Without Borders also reiterates its call for the release of three Tamil doctors – Thangamuttu Sathiyamorthi, Thurairaja Varatharajan and V.
Sunmugarajah – who have been held since 18 May 2009 for providing the international media with information about the humanitarian situation in the Vanni district. ICRC representatives were allowed to see them in Colombo.

The army is trying to identify Tamils who provided information to the foreign press. A humanitarian aid worker who visited a camp near Vavuniya told Reporters Without Borders that members of Tamil paramilitary groups have been infiltrated into some camps with the aim of identifying those who are trying to get their stories to the media.

The army recently blocked the arrival of several dozen nuns who had obtained health ministry permission to visit camps to help refugees, especially those who have been psychologically traumatised.

Reporters Without Borders also condemns the way Vavuniya-based journalist Mahamuni Subramaniam, a stringer for various news media including Reuters, has been treated. He was arrested on 14 May while covering the justice minister’s visit to the Ramanathan refugee camp.

Claiming that only journalists with the ITN and Rupavahini TV stations were allowed to film or take pictures of the minister’s meeting with a general, the police confiscated his expensive camera and still have not returned it to him, although he has petitioned the High Court for its return.

“During these inquiries once Major General Chandrasiri came out and verbally abused me saying I am a LTTE suspect and ordered the military to check me thoroughly. When I claimed that I am a reporter for Reuters, he vehemently said all foreign journalists are working against his homeland”, Subramaniam said in a letter.

A report published in “Le Monde” on 28 May accused the United Nations, especially the secretary-general’s chief of staff, Vijay Nambiar, of deliberately playing down the number of Tamil casualties during the fighting so as not to anger the government and thereby jeopardise the UN’s ability to continue operating in the country. An estimated 20,000 Tamils died in the fighting.

A resolution adopted by the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on 27 May praising the Sri Lankan government was an insult to the Tamil victims, Reporters Without Borders added.

Sri Lankan Government Must End Incitement to Violence Against Journalists – 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.