SRI LANKA: COURT ORDERS CLOSURE OF LANK-A-ENEWS WEBSITE – JDS

Journalist For Democracy in Sri Lanka (JDS) protests against the unprecedented move where a court in Sri Lanka has ordered the closure of a website critical of the government.

Pugoda Magistrate and Additional District Judge Aravinda Perera  ordered  the Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (TLC) on Thursday to take measures to ban Lanka-E-News website in Sri Lanka. While JDS is of the firm view that there is no legal provisions for the judiciary to obstruct media sites, we strongly believe that in gagging a media outlet for an erroneous news item, the courts has overstepped its mandate. JDS also wishes to state that Lanka-E-News has already published an apology for the news item found to be in contempt of court. Despite publishing an apology, on the 25th of April, the police arrested journalist Shantha Wijessoriya attached to the website charged with contempt of court by publishing the report.

The Magistrate also ordered the arrested journalist to be held in protective custody until 12th May, when he was produced before courts today (28).

Journalist For Democracy in Sri Lanka calls upon all democratic forces to oppose and to urge the courts to immediately revoke this order that poses a serious threat to freedom of expression in Sri Lanka.

Executive Committee

Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka

Out of Sri Lanka’s trials comes a beacon of hope

Chimamanda-Ngozi-Adichie

Robert McCrum /The Observer, Sunday 6 February 2011

Ever since the Hay festival set up shop overseas in Cartagena, Colombia, in 2006, literary festivals have been going global, like the English language. The marriage of international literary stars with local and expat audiences in exotic locations has inspired an unprecedented surge in book tourism, from Shanghai to Byron Bay, Australia. In Jaipur last month, for instance, you could bump into JM Coetzee, Richard Ford, Martin Amis and Candace Bushnell. With the export of festival UK, ambitious writers today are advised to carry a pen and a passport.

The brutal regime that crushed the Tamil insurgency is rightly charged with repressing, “disappearing” and allegedly killing journalists. So Galle was accused of collaborating with an enemy of free speech.

Read the full story here

Freedom Of Expression In Sri Lanka, Circa 2011 – The Boycott debate

Sinniah Maunaguru and his drama troupe from the Eastern University, Batticaloa, present excerpts from a Tamil folk play Ravanesan at Thomas Gall International School.

By Indi Samarajiva

Reporters Sans Frontiers has protested the lack of freedom of expression in Sri Lanka. Their main target seems to be the government, though they have taken shots at the entirely unrelated Galle Literary Festival. They may, however, have a point, even if the GLF boycott has missed it. Freedom of expression has suffered in Sri Lanka, just not in the ways one might expect.

RSF’s 2010 Press Freedom Index has Sri Lanka at number 158, nearly tied with Saudi Arabia. This makes the rankings somewhat suspect. In Saudi Arabia, all newspapers are owned by the royal family or their associates. All TV and radio stations are government owned. Saudi journalists are forbidden by law to criticise the royal family or religious authorities and writers and bloggers are routinely arrested.

Sri Lanka is obviously not this bad. There is independent media and the government is quite roundly criticised both online and off. If there was a literary festival in Saudi Arabia it would be a farce, but Sri Lanka is, in reality, much more free than the Kingdom. This does not, however, mean that expression is truly free. Sri Lankan repression of speech is more subtle, but still very real.

I was recently in the office of the head of a large media company. Quite casually, he mentioned that they screen certain stories for political content and pull them if they think it would jeopardise the company. This essentially, is the nature of censorship in Sri Lanka today. The government has made it in the media’s self-interest to practice self-censorship.
Censorship

Censorship is easy to see. The government occasionally seizes shipments of the Economist magazine at customs or has, in the past, shut down radio stations. Even censorship by proxy leaves obvious marks.

During the war, the presses of The Sunday Leader were burnt, its Editor killed, the offices of Sirasa TV were attacked, etc. While the government may not be involved, it remains implicated by its lack of investigation. While they may not have conducted the attacks, they certainly didn’t appear to care, making such extra-legal activity tacitly OK.
When the government was fighting the war in earnest, restrictions on media and expression rose dramatically. Mahinda Rajapaksa and Gotabaya Rajapaksa were quite public in their belief that one was either with the war effort or against the country, and the latter was quite vehement in his belief that military matters should not be reported on. Perhaps no less sensitive was then Army Commander Sarath Fonseka.

This could be seen in that Sri Lanka was rated worse and worse by even the flawed RSF metrics in 2008 and 2009. It was strikingly obvious on the ground, especially as journalists — particularly those covering defense matters — were routinely assaulted or abducted, leading many others to flee. This tacit censorship reached a head with two cases, the assassination of Lasantha Wickrematunge and the arrest and trial of J.S. Tissainayagam. The clear message sent by the government was that both prominent and humble journalists could have their lives ended or destroyed if they stepped out of line.

Lasantha was a prominent editor, the local TIME magazine correspondent and a lawyer. He was also personally known to President Mahinda Rajapaksa, the Bandaranaike family and Ranil Wickremesinghe, having worked with them all before. When he was so blatantly killed and when the investigation was so blatantly sidelined, the message was clear. Even the most prominent journalist can be put down.

Tissainayagam was a different case. He published a magazine with a small circulation which included some articles on the war which few people saw. Yet, for that offense, he was arrested, kept in jail and subjected to a rigourous trial and then sentenced to 20 years of hard labour.

That sentence was commuted by the President but the message, again, was clear. Even low-level or independent journalists can also be put down. In all of these cases, the legal and executive arms of the government sent the message that dissent will not be tolerated. Either by who they chose to prosecute (Tissainayagam) or whose death they chose not to investigate (Lasantha.) The message was clear. At a time when Sri Lankan laws were effectively over-ridden by Emergency Law, what mattered was what the government chose to enforce, and what they chose to ignore.  That was the law. The government enforced censorship and they ignored violence against the media. At that time, the chilling effect on freedom of expression was plain to see.

Self Censorship

Fast forward to 2011, however, and censorship has gone mostly underground. If Lasantha and Tissainayagam were meant to teach a lesson, Sri Lankan people and media institutions learned it well. People report less, care less, and notice less that something is wrong.

Since the war ended with press repression (perhaps even because of it), people are also more inclined to accept these restrictions as being for their own good. Also, since the war is over there are simply less sensitive subjects to report on. Still, Mahinda’s government enjoys relatively free reign in massive development projects and economic issues, partly due to the now ingrained reluctance of sources to talk, and the instinct in journalists not to ask.

Traditionally, sources would still talk in the hope of ushering in a change of government. Ranil Wickremesinghe’s repression of the opposition, however, has made that hope a non-starter.  While paying lip-service to freedom of expression, Wickremesinghe effectively created a penned in corral where dissenting opinions may be harmlessly expressed. Since he consistently loses elections, he has created a static opposition with little hope of assuming power under his reign. As such, few sources are willing to attack a government without hope of being someday vindicated when an opposition takes power.

Today the government doesn’t have to openly repress or attack media. The media is effectively tamed by a judicious combination of violence, prosecution, and politics. What opposition media remains hasn’t done itself any favors by clinging to the losing dialogue of the past, heavily influenced by an anti-war stance now widely discredited and a reliance on Western language and support now widely cast as unpatriotic. Media organisations are also struggling to adapt to a post-war era which requires more than simply reporting bomb blasts and body counts. Many have responded by simply reporting government press releases and versions of events, a strategy that seems to work well enough for the market at a low cost, and also without carrying the risk of being shut down. In that way, self-censorship is also made to pay well, or at least better than the alternative.

Freedom Of Expression

This media landscape is thus very different from Saudi Arabia or the other countries RSF investigates. The culture of repression is not that of a dictatorial regime on an unhappy people, it is created with the active participation of both the people and the media, after an initial round of violent education. As such, outside interventions, boycotts, and condemnation are likely counter-productive. The forces for media freedom already suffer by being tagged as unpatriotic, so being identified with punitive foreign forces certainly doesn’t help.

Furthermore, the government lifting restrictions would not mean that a free media suddenly emerges. Censorship has already left the government realm and self-censorship has spread more deeply into boardrooms, newsrooms, and minds. The threats to freedom of expression in Sri Lanka are much more subtle today than the fist or the gun.  Indeed, freedom of expression has suffered so much in Sri Lanka that it’s now bleeding into that other fundamental right, freedom of thought.
This is a much more nuanced picture than the RSF would like to project, and it is a much more delicate problem than a boycott could address.  Indeed, the right solution may be just the opposite — further engagement. Freedom of speech is improving since the end of the war, but the media has not psychologically caught up. It may be, that after years of intense repression, what freedom of expression in Sri Lanka needs is a little practice.

http://www.thesundayleader.lk/2011/01/30/freedom-of-expression-in-sri-lanka-circa-2011/

Sunila Abeysekara on RSF/JDS appeal to boycott the Galle Literary Festival

Sunila Abeysekara

24 Jan, 2011 Groundviews Colombo,

[Editors note: We were sent this personal letter from  Sunila Abeysekara addressed to a leading signatory of the RSF/JDS appeal to boycott the Galle Literary Festival. She kindly agreed to publish it on Groundviews for a wider appreciation. As noted in our response to the RSF/JDS appeal, Sunila is an outspoken and award winning human rights activist. Amongst a number of other awards recognising her work, former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan presented Sunila with a UN Human Rights Award in 1999. See a video interview with Sunila conducted by Groundviews for Human Rights Day in 2009 here.]

Dear Cheran,

I am writing to you after seeing your signature on the petition circulated by the JDS (Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka) and RSF (Reporters without Borders) calling for a boycott of the Galle Literary Festival. I was really sorry to see your signature there.

As you know I have dedicated the past thirty years of my life to defend human rights and media freedom in Sri Lanka, and continue to live and work in this country. The past years have been very difficult ones, especially as we face continuing attacks and intimidation from both state and non-state forces in the aftermath of the war and in the absence of any credible process of political negotiation with the Tamil community, let alone any process of reconciliation or healing.

2011 is the first year which I agreed to play an active role in the Galle Literary Festival, although I had attended random sessions in the past. I did so because I felt that the festival was one of the very few spaces available to us to engage in a broad discussion and dialogue regarding art and culture and contemporary social issues in Sri Lanka in general, with a group of internationally known and published creative writers, and through this, bring to their attention the real situation of the country, including the situation confronting cultural workers and activists and media persons.

While I accept that you have every right to your opinion, and to the expression of that opinion, and while I think that as many organizations as possible around the world should continue to call for respect for human rights in Sri Lanka, it is hard for me to accept the argument that by coming to Sri Lanka, the writers who have been invited for the GLF will ‘give legitimacy to the Sri Lankan government’s suppression of free speech’. In fact, calling for a boycott of the GLF constitutes an act of silencing that I find totally unacceptable.

In my opinion, the GLF creates spaces for moderates and liberals from all communities in Sri Lanka who are interested in the arts and culture to come together with colleagues from around the world to talk, to share and to enjoy each other’s company and accomplishments. In an environment in which there is so much silencing going on, the presence of key figures from the international literary world acts as a catalyst for us, opening up relatively ‘safe’ spaces for literary and political exploration and debate and allows Sri Lankan writers and artistes to learn from other experiences.

I wish that colleagues of the JDS and RSF, who know me well, and who work together with us on defending human rights and media freedom issues, had spoken to me, and others involved with the GLF 2011, before making their statement. It would have given us all an opportunity to be more strategic about how we could use the opportunities afforded by the GLF to draw attention to our common concerns regarding human rights and media freedom in Sri Lanka. It is extremely disappointing to find those who defend media freedom in Sri Lanka playing a role in depriving us of an opportunity to express ourselves and our desire for a democratic and peaceful environment in which to live and work, with a broader community from outside the country.

Regards,

Sunila

http://groundviews.org/2011/01/24/writing-against-the-rsfjds-appeal-to-boycott-the-galle-literary-festival/

GLF boycott: This time around charlatans hijacked media activism

 

The boycott Debate  continues- See below for JDS response

By Ranga Jayasuriya

A group of exiled Sri Lankan journalists, Journalists for Democracy (JDS) and  Reporters Sans Frontiers (RSF) have launched a global appeal to boycott the Galle Literary Festival.

The appeal has reportedly compelled Nobel laureate and Turkish author Orhan Pamuk and Booker Prize winning Indian writer Kiran Desai to pull out of  the GLF, which is scheduled to take  place in the  southern city of Galle next week. Among the signatories of the appeal are Noam Chomsky, Arundathi Roy, Ken Loach, Antony Loewenstein, Tariq Ali and Dave Rampton,

This article is not about the GLF itself. (Better qualified writers had dealt with the subject in the previous issues of this newspaper.)
The objective of this article is to discuss the dynamics of media activism in this country and why it has become a fools paradise, which has now descended to a level of idiosyncrasy, it has been never before,  by appealing to boycott  a 5-1literary event (at least, so say the  organizers of the GLF), which is remotely associated with the State.

Suppression

“We believe this is not the right time for prominent international writers like you to give legitimacy to the Sri Lankan government’s suppression of free speech by attending a conference that does not in any way push for greater freedom of expression inside that country,” say JDS and RSF in the appeal.

I myself  was at a loss, unable to discern, as to how the boycott of the GLF would better the case of the Sri Lankan media. So I sent a questionnaire to the JDS, some of whose members I personally knew when we worked together in the Sri Lanka Working Journalist Association (SLWJA.).  JDS replied to my mail last evening only after our first edition went to press. We have published their reply in full in our late city edition. (See box)

The problem with the media activism in this country is that it has, historically, been prone to be hijacked by charlatans. Its recent history would bare witness to this. In its heydays, the Free Media Movement was a force to reckon with and was instrumental in the ouster of semi autocratic UNP regime in 1994. However, FMM’s heydays soon ended after its lead actors secured key positions in the state run Lakehouse and Rupavahini under the Chandrika Kumarathunga Administration..

Concerns over the personal integrity of the frontrunners of media activist groups have always hovered over media protest campaigns. Some allegations were not more than character assassinations, but, others, in fact, were proved to be true.

A disparate lot

That is one reason as to why most journalists in mainstream media have shunned media activist groups. The preponderance of the membership of groups like FMM and SLWJA, of which this writer himself is an executive committee member, come from so called alternative media. Whenever, the mainstream press is represented, that happened to be by a backbencher, though there  had been  exceptions to this norm  in the past.

The non-representation of the mainstream media in the sphere of media activism boils down to the very nature of the media fraternity in Sri Lanka, which itself is a disparate lot.
It is unequal because the media entrepreneurs have shown a historical proclivity to hire anyone who would work for pea nuts, irrespective of their competency.

That is why a sizeable number of journalists in this country happen to be accidental journalists, who ended up in journalism by accident. But, journalism requires a rigorous intellectual training, in the absence of which journalists would relegate themselves to the status of stenographers, whose sole job is to reproduce notes from press conferences.

The conventional wisdom that newsroom is the best training ground for budding journalists is both right and wrong. One could not generally master journalism without being a news reporter at some point in his or her career, though there are exceptions to this norm.
But, equally important, one would never be a good news reporter without necessary analytical insights, which could only be accomplished through an intellectual exercise.

(Though diploma courses at the College of Journalism would be a good first step for the budding journalists, journalism training in this country needs to be expanded to graduate level interdisciplinary courses.)

Back to the composition of the media fraternity; apart from a large swath of ‘accidental’ journalists, there are a handful of others who make the real intellectual contribution to journalism. And though outspoken in their articles, they prefer to keep away from media activism. And where angels fear to tread, fools rush in.

Worse still, now the campaign to restore media freedom in this country has been hijacked by a couple of exiles living off the generosity  of Germany’s far left Green party.

JDS and RSF could say any thing, but media associations in this country should also have their own opinion. And we are yet to hear about their position on the JDS’s campaign.

It should be made loud and clear that this writer is not an apologist of the Rajapaksa Administration. It was only last week that we highlighted the climate of impunity in this country. The top political and military leadership stand condemned, at least for some, high profile killings, assaults and disappearances of media personnel. Over twenty media employees were killed, many more  were assaulted and some others were forced into self exile during the last few years.

Smell a rat

Journalists and media owners are being compelled to exercise self censorship. Intolerance has taken root.   And tomorrow marks the first anniversary of the disappearance of the cartoonist Prageeth Ekneligoda.
But, I am baffled as to how the boycott of the Galle Literary Festival could help improve the media freedom in Sri Lanka. If it does help, I will be among the first to sign the online petition on the website of the JDS.

But, I could smell a rat. This campaign has a far more sinister agenda. This is part of a wider “Boycott Sri Lanka” campaign launched by the British Tamil Forum.

This would not help improve media freedom in this country, nor would it better the lot of despondent Tamils in Jaffna. In reality, it is remotely concerned with the fate of Prageeth.

This campaign could only help a few exiled ‘journalists’ to justify their asylum requests. Note that I said, a few, because some journalists, in fact, have had genuine fears. Poddala Jayantha begin_of_the_skype_highlighting     end_of_the_skype_highlighting would not have fled, had not the alleged state apparatus abducted and crippled his legs. Nor would  Sanath Balasuriya,  had not he been forced to flee.
I can’t say the same about many others, there could be exceptions such as Keith Noyar who himself was abducted and beaten.
But, there are others who need to justify their sojourn in the West and this  campaign to boycott the GLF is for them.

Why we call for the boycott:  JDS explains

Journalist for Democracy has answered to a set of questions sent to them via email by Lakbima News.
We publish  below their reply  in full:

What is your rationale in boycotting the Galle Literary Festival?

The international appeal launched by RSF/JDS does not ask anyone intending to attend the GLF, to boycott the event. If the renowned writers failed to express their concerns about the precarious conditions faced by the fellow writers and journalists, while attending a literary festival in a country where journalists/writers are killed and imprisoned simply for  writing stuff that offends the regime, it simply legitimizes the status quo. Therefore, what the appeal calls for  is  “to consider Sri Lanka’s appalling human rights record and targeting of journalists” and to “ask in the great tradition of solidarity that binds writers together everywhere, to stand with your brothers and sisters in Sri Lanka who are not allowed to speak out” by “sending a clear message that, unless and until the disappearance of Prageeth is investigated and there is a real improvement in the climate for free expression in Sri Lanka, you cannot celebrate writing and the arts.”
As a matter of fact, nearly 23 media workers (including journalists) have either been killed or disappeared since December 2005. That excludes Prageeth Eknaligoda, who went missing on the 24th of January 2010. So far not a single perpetrator has been brought to book and no single case has been investigated in a satisfactory manner. Anyone, who is intending to attend a literary event in Sri Lanka  in such a context, needs to make sure that his or her fame could not be used to strengthen the intensive state propaganda campaign to promote the country’s image as a ideal tourist destination where normalcy reigns and free  space for cultural interaction exists. It is their moral obligation to make a stand to show that they are aware and are really concerned about the fate of their fellow writers and journalists who have fallen victim to repressive policies.   If not, their glamor and passive appearance would provide the legitimacy that the state desperately needs to cover up the recent past, which is  buried in a sea of corpses. That is the essence which lies at the centre  of the campaign.  Does it sound too sympathetic towards Tigers? Well, as far as the facts are concerned, we take the liberty to totally disagree with such narrow minded assumptions.

Are you aware that the  GLF isn’t a state sanctioned project, but is a community project to showcase the heritage of English literature in this country?

We are well aware that the event is not directly organized by any state institutions. If that had been the case, we wouldn’t have hesitated to call for a boycott in plain and clear terms. We do have great respect towards some of the people involved in the event, whose commitment to democracy and human rights is admirable. Nevertheless,  it does not prevent us from looking at the bigger picture and inviting others to do likewise. The Galle Literary Festival, either intentionally or not, overlaps with the massive propaganda drive of the Sri Lankan government aiming to promote Sri Lanka as a peaceful tourist destination where a considerable liberal space for free cultural life flourishes without any interference of the state. You describe it as a “ community project to showcase   heritage of English literature of Sri Lanka”. Going through the programme itself shows that it is a misconception. If there is any community involved in setting this up, it is clearly the business community.

As for the heritage of “English literature of Sri Lanka,” we don’t see much showcased in the programme. However, the main thrust of the event is clearly promoting the virtues of a ‘free land’ where life is normal. Going through  the list of sponsors and what they offer clearly calls upon the visitor to indulge in many luxuries which neither the ordinary writer/ reader or journalist can enjoy due to the poverty of the nation and the prevailing culture of insecurity.

How would your proposed boycott help improve media freedom back home?

There were many who believed that the media situation in the country will be better following the military defeat of the Tamil Tigers. Forgetting the dead and not meting out justice does not auger well at any time for media freedom. It also questions the level of civilization. Lasantha was killed during the war and Prageeth went missing after the government declared the land to be under one rule. These two incidents are evidence that the situation has not improved. We as an organization will take every opportunity to raise the dire situation the country is faced with on its human rights and media freedom record. That Orhan Pamuk and Kiran Desai  have already pulled out shows that there are people on this earth who have a conscience and are prepared to take action to improve the situation anywhere in the world. It is rather frustrating that some who have stood for freedom of expression in the past is now  shooting the messenger rather than using the discussion to call for speedy accountability.

Haven’t you become a cat paw of the extremist elements of Tamil Diaspora  and an instrument of their campaign to boycott anything associated with Sri Lanka?

It has become a fashion statement of the state to call any dissenter a ‘tiger paw’. When a senior journalist too uses that term on an organization, it speaks volumes of how far the suppression and censorship goes. RSF and JDS have been in the scene for some time highlighting the HR issues in Sri Lanka and you would recall that it is not the first time both these organizations were called Tiger lovers.  It is not the feeling  that matters when one is faced by the truth, but the real facts. The facts being, Sri Lanka is run by a regime that does not value human rights or freedom of expression among other wrongdoings and this will be not the last time that it’s record will be brought to question. Therefore we call upon all freedom loving people at large and Sri Lankans in particular to raise your voice to make Sri Lanka a place where justice and freedom prevails. If there is no effective mechanism to  raise these issues within our country for obvious and terrifying reasons, we would not hesitate to highlight the issues in whatever forum possible.

http://www.lakbimanews.lk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=280:glf-boycott-this-time-around-charlatans-hijacked-media-activism-&catid=35:news-features&Itemid=37

Responding to a facile appeal: Galle Literary Festival and the freedom of expression

The Editors of Groundviews received via email this morning intimation of an international appeal made by Reporters Without Borders and Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka (JDS), a network of exiled Sri Lankan journalists. The Galle literary festival appeal notes inter alia,

“We believe this is not the right time for prominent international writers like you to give legitimacy to the Sri Lankan government’s suppression of free speech by attending a conference that does not in any way push for greater freedom of expression inside that country.”

Now in its fifth consecutive year, the Galle Literary Festival has been called many things, but a ‘conference’ it has not. Things go inexorably downhill from here. This ill-advised appeal reminds us of the equally ill-conceived Amnesty International human rights campaign during the last cricket world cup in 2007. At the time, even well-known human rights defenders in Sri Lanka wrote against AI’s campaign. As The Amnesty Campaign: Taking the Eye Off the Ball by Dr. Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu noted,

“The full extent of the impact and damage of this campaign is yet to be seen. One hopes that public discourse on human rights protection in Sri Lanka is not going to be irretrievably obscured and obfuscated by reference to the rights and wrongs of this campaign or that Sri Lankans will in any way be deterred from lending their voice to the urgent need for human rights protection in this country, by concerns about being unpatriotic that have been aroused by memories of this campaign. The Amnesty campaign has been clumsily and insensitively conceived. It as made an issue of itself in Sri Lanka and detracted attention from the issue in Sri Lanka it rightly sought to draw attention to.”

Another pseudonymous writer on Groundviews (Amnesty Campaign: Some quick thoughts) and the vast majority of commentators on both articles concurred on how myopic AI’s campaign was. Few, if any, discounted that human rights protection in Sri Lanka was a serious challenge, and that the government had largely failed in this regard. Many however were strongly opposed to how AI chose to go about flagging it. The RSF/JDS campaign tragically revisits the fiasco. The bizarre appeal attempts to peg what are indubitably serious and real concerns over media freedom to a festival of literature that has nothing to do with media or journalism. It is unclear what if any consultation there was with local media freedom activists and groups before this appeal was launched. We could not find similar appeals by RSF to stay away from the Jaipur Literature Festival over India’s human rights violations in Kashmir and elsewhere within its borders, as Arundhathi Roy, a signatory to this appeal, knows better than most.

We also wonder why this appeal is issued now, in 2011? GLF began during war, and continued throughout it. Reflecting this, GLF sessions proper, as well as a number of fringe events over the years, have addressed issues of media freedom and the freedom of expression. At the 4th GLF, fringe panels included interesting discussions on what post-war literature and writing would be like, what issues they would address and how. At the 3rd GLF, a fringe event brought together a senior government spokesperson from the Presidential Media Unit as well as other journalists to talk about what even at the time was a fairly bleak outlook for media freedom. At its core, GLF is embodies precisely what RSF/JDS often advocate – a space for critical enjoyment of the written and spoken word and a platform for the celebration of ideas. If writers boycott the festival, so will international media. And if international media boycotts the event, how can they report on the challenges facing mainstream media when compared to the freedom of expression in the festival? As Lindesay Irvine said in the Guardian in 2009,

“All of this marvellously free expression struck a distinctly uneasy note, knowing that one of the world’s bloodiest civil wars was being played out on the other side of the island, with thousands of civilians trapped between the Sri Lankan army and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, the world’s press kept away and local journalists all too aware that to report anything other than the government’s propaganda is to put your life in peril. (I should stress here that both sides of the Sri Lankan civil war are very careful not to endanger western tourists, and visitors to the southern half of the island are at no tangible risk. They need your money. Go.)”

Each GLF brings with it more, not less scrutiny on the country’s media landscape. It keeps Sri Lanka on the international media’s map, when in fact it rarely is now that the war is over. The festival’s curator, Shyam Selvadurai, is an award winning Tamil author. Any charge that he is insensitive to the complex politics of conflict and violence is one that simply does not stick. His recent interview featured on Groundviews suggests a festival that is popular and keenly anticipated, locally as well as internationally. As for not dealing with more contentious issues related to war, the BBC World Forum is organising as part of the official programme a session moderated by the outspoken, award winning human rights and media freedom activist Sunila Abeysekara on how displacement continues to affect the Sri Lankan psyche almost two years after the end of the civil war. The panel also features Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie who explores the lasting effects of Nigeria’s 1960s civil war through some of her stories in The Thing Around Your Neck. Perhaps this escaped the attention of RSF and JDS.

Groundviews and Vikalpa have borne witness to Sri Lanka’s atrocious record of media freedom since their inception, including on Lasantha and Prageeth. RSF/JDS find it “it highly disturbing that literature is being celebrated in this manner in a land where cartoonists, journalists, writers and dissident voices are so often victimized by the current government.” The concern over the deterioration of media freedom is fully shared. How to address it is emphatically not. If GLF celebrates literature, that alone is reason enough to support it, attend and expand as much as possible the idea of the festival to other locations in Sri Lanka and in the vernacular to boot. If it is the case that the freedom of expression within GLF is absent from mainstream media, then the remedy is surely to not boycott the one instance where it is actually present?

The appeal ends by noting that “unless and until the disappearance of Prageeth is investigated and there is a real improvement in the climate for free expression in Sri Lanka, you cannot celebrate writing and the arts in Galle”. In fact, it’s also investigations into Lasantha’s murder that we need to be concerned about. Sustained emphasis on both cases in particular and the serious challenges facing media freedom in general, however, does not justify a boycott of GLF. In not recognising the symbolic value of an event where during war and after it, the freedom of expression is actively encouraged, RSF and JDS undermine their own appeal.

Events like GLF are sadly rare. Let us enjoy them in peace.

http://groundviews.org/2011/01/20/responding-to-a-facile-appeal-galle-literary-festival-and-the-freedom-of-expression/

Sri Lanka: 2011 dawns with killings and abductions

PRESS RELEASE | 04 January 2011
Sri Lanka: 2011 dawns with killings and abductions

As the killers of five Tamil students in Trincomalee go unpunished for the fifth year, the number of killings and abductions in the government controlled north of Sri Lanka is alarmingly on the rise.
Manoharan Ragihar, Yogarajah Hemachchandra, Logitharajah Rohan, Thangathurai Sivanantha and Shanmugarajah Gajendran were all shot dead on the second of January 2006 in a High Security Zone in Sri Lanka’s eastern town of Trincomalee. The families, local journalists and international organisations had evidence that the crime was committed by the state armed forces. The government failing to find the perpetrators and punish them is clear proof to that evidence.

Three weeks later, Sudaroli Journalist Subramaniyam Sugirdharajan whose photographs exposed that the students were killed at point-blank range was shot dead near the Governor’s Secretariat.

2011

The new year dawned in Jaffna with  Sobinathan Gopinath, a 27-year-old driver of a three wheeler taxi, disappearing from Urumpirai, where, within the duration of three days, a teacher was abducted and an education officer shot dead.

The latest of abductions were reported from Kilinochchi on the 3rd of January. 28 out of 30 boys who were abducted by an armed group were later dropped at the Omanthai military checkpoint. The fate of the other two is not known.

Tamils in Jaffna and Kilinochchi are terrified by this latest wave of forced disappearances and killings. Within the last two weeks of 2010 the following violence against northern Tamils were reported from a region with a disproportionate military presence where independent media and voluntary organisations are barred.

·       The chief priest of Changkaanai Murukamoorthy temple, 56 year old Nithiyananda Sharma, died from gunshot wounds received at the temple early December.

·       The decapitated body of Mahendran Thiruvarudchelvam, who had been displaced from the Vanni was found in Jaffna on the 20th of December, nine days after his disappearance.

·       On the 27th of December Armed men who arrived on a motorbike, shot and killed the Deputy Director of Education for the Valikaamam Zone, Markandu Sivalingam.

·       Gunmen killed environmentalist Ketheeswaran Thevarajah, in Jaffna on the 31st of December.

·       30-year-old teacher, Shanmuganathan Vignesvaran of Urumpiraay West had been abducted on 30th December at Urumpiraay, Jaffna.

Government ministers from the Tamil region, Vinayagamurthi Muralitharan and Douglas Devananda have already accepted in public that the abductions and killings have not been investigated to a conclusion. The commander for the Sri Lankan military in Jaffna, Major General Mahinda Hathurusinghe speaking to journalists has ruled out the involvement of the Tamil Tigers. However, he has told the BBC that the killing of the priest earlier in December was the work of two former Tamil Tiger fighters working in cooperation with a government army corporal and that all these individuals had been arrested.

The government

The government of Sri Lanka denied the allegations made against it and claimed that there was a political motive to discredit the government by associating it with some of the killings. It explicitly denied that the education official had been killed for condemning the singing of the national anthem in Sinhala, rather than Tamil, at a state function. However, it has failed to find the culprits or establish a motive.

The climate of terror in Jaffna in particular and in the north in general continues even twenty months after the Sri Lankan government proclaimed its military victory over Tamil Tigers. However, President Mahinda Rajapaksa has declared that the state led by him will not stop operations. Addressing novice cadet officers of the Diyatalawa Sri Lanka Military Academy on the 21st of December, President Rajapaksa said that the operation  ‘will not cease until all bitter past memories of terrorism and secessionist intentions are completely wiped out’.

Journalist for Democracy in Sri Lanka (JDS) strongly believes that the escalation of violence against Tamils following the president’s declaration is of serious concern in a land where Tamils are faced with loss of life, land, cultural identity and freedom.

While vehemently condemning these atrocities against the Tamil people, JDS warns that Sri Lanka will end up being at the mercy of an autocratic, fundamentalist state unless the freedom loving people within and without the country act immediately to stop this recurring violence.

Executive Committee
Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka
04 January 2011

URGENT ALERT -Sri Lanka : A Tamil journalist arrested at the Colombo Airport

URGENT ALERT
2010 November 19 | 10.32 GMT

A London based Tamil journalist has been arrested on Wednesday (17) at the Colombo Airport, while he was on his way to visit his family. A British passport holder, Karthigesu Thirulogasundar (37), was arrested by the officers attached to Sri Lankan state intelligence agency and currently being held in an undisclosed location. Thirulogasundar was previously attached to London based popular TV channels  Deepam TV and GTV. He is currently working as a full time journalist for London based radio station, IBC. He had visited the island, hoping to visit his aging mother who is seriously ill.

Name:  Karthigesu Thirulogasundar
Date of Birth : 23 March 1973
Media involvement: Deepam TV, GTV & IBC Radio
Date of arrest: 17 November 2010

The Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka appeals to all concerned groups and individuals to take necessary action to demand for immediate release of journalist Karthigesu Thirulogasundar.

Please act make phone calls and send emails to:

The President of Sri Lanka – + 94 112447400/ email -president@presidentsoffice.lk

Secretary to the President – +94 112 2326309 / email – prsec@presidentsoffice.lk

Inspector General of Police Mahinda Balasuriya – +94 112 421750 / +94 773088400 email – igp@police.lk

Executive Committee

Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka

www.jdslanka.org

Attorney General’s words about protecting journalists empty unless he backs them up with action.

Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka welcomes the offer made by the Sri Lankan Attorney General, Mohan Peiris, to provide protection for exiled journalists if they return to the island but urges him to take immediate steps to prove he is serious about media freedom.

Inviting exiled journalists back home, the Attorney General told the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) that there must be assurances on the part of the government that those who return won’t come to any harm.  He was also quoted as saying that it was not useful to have journalists staying away from the country and ‘attacking the government.’ Discussing the issue of exiled journalists while meeting a CPJ delegation in Colombo on Wednesday 10th March he said  “They must come back and work with us and help set up the structures so that we can work together and we can respect each other.”

Over seventy Sri Lankan media workers fled Sri Lanka during the Mahinda Rajapaksa period of government due to intimidation and death threats.  They were unable to work in Sri Lanka after being denounced as  people who “attack the government”.  It is interesting to note the Attorney General now accepts that it is the responsibility of the government to provide protection to these journalists in future; is he also suggesting it was the government threatened the journalists in the first place?

As an initial step to provide assurances to exiled journalists who wish to return, JDS calls upon the Attorney General  to prove his good intentions by disclosing the whereabouts of  Prageeth Ekneligoda who has been missing since the 24th of January and by advising the courts to repeal the 20 year jail sentence given to J.S.Tissainayagam under anti-terrorist laws. In addition, we would like the Attorney General to expedite investigations into the many unsolved crimes against media workers (listed below) during the Mahinda Rajapaksa period of rule and bring those responsible to book.

Unless the government takes steps to allay the fears of journalists working in Sri Lanka and ends the culture of impunity, the Attorney General’s words will be another empty promise and the return of exiled journalists who love their country still a distant dream.

Executive Committee
Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka
12.03.2010

http://jdsrilanka.blogspot.com/

URGENT ALERT: CID RAIDS ARRESTED JOURNALIST’S RESIDENCE

Officers attached to the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) who had previously arrested the editor of the “Irida Lanka” newspaper, Chandana Sirimalwatte, have tried to break into his residence a short while ago. According to initial reports, the officers who had visited his residence tried to search the premises without a search warrant. But the wife of the journalist had refused to grant permission since the officers failed to produce a valid search warrant. She has given her protest in writing to the officers.
In the meantime, another group of CID officers have raided the “Irida Lanka” newspaper office on Saturday (30) morning for the second time, after sealing off the premises to visitors. Earlier on Friday (29) afternoon, following the arrest of the editor, the CID broke into “Irida Lanka” office and had searched the premises extensively. They had brought the arrested journalist along with them and had forced him to hand over files that contain sensitive information. According to our sources, the second CID raid is still going on and the officers are questioning every staff member despite their protest.

Notwithstanding the repeated condemnations issued by international media rights groups in the wake of the fresh intimidation campaign, it is obvious that the Sri Lankan government is determined to continue their extremely coercive policy of cracking down on the dissenting media. The journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka urge all the responsible governments and rights group with utmost urgency to demand an immediate stop to the increasing harassment unleashed against “Irida Lanka” and to release it’s editor Chandana Sirimalwatte immediately.

Please make phone calls and send emails to:

The President of Sri Lanka – + 94 112447400/ email -president@presidentsoffice.lk

Secretary to the President – +94 112 2326309 / email – prsec@presidentsoffice.lk

Minister of Information Anura Yapa – + 94 0773 814470 (mobile) / +94 112596557 (Office)

Inspector General of Police Mahinda Balasuriya – +94 112 421750 / +94 773088400 email – igp@police.lk

Spokesman Mr. Nimal Madiwake (Senior Deputy Inspector General of Police) – +94 72 2248235

SSP I.M. Karunarathne (Assistant Media Spokesman) – +94 11 4236161 +94 772 602897

(please send copies of your emails to journalistsfordemocracy@gmail.com)

Executive Committee
Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka
30.01.2010