Ominous similarities — Déjà Vu

This week we produce a professional opinion secured by us from graphologist P.H. Manatunge, in which he states that the Sinhala writing on the piece of newspaper sent to Lasantha Wickrematunge in December 2008, three weeks before he was killed, shows some similarities with the Sinhala writings of the death threats sent to Frederica Jansz and Munza Mushtaq on October 22.
Manatunge asserts that this indicates that the person who sent the death threat to Lasantha in December last year and the person who wrote the two death threats to Frederica and Munza could be one and the same person. (See box)

That journalists continue to receive death threats in Sri Lanka is indeed a damning indictment of this government.  This is not to say that such threats emanate from the state, but the fact of the matter is that they continue to happen under the watch of this regime.

Since President Mahinda Rajapaksa was elected to office in 2006 eleven journalists have been killed in this country, including the Founder and Editor-in–Chief of this newspaper, Lasantha Wickrematunge, on January 8.
In addition, over 30 media workers have been assaulted during the last two years. All these incidents took place under the watch of the President.

At the time he fought his way to the SLFP presidential nomination in 2005, Rajapaksa was welcomed warmly by this newspaper. So well known was he for his commitments to human rights and liberal values that we ushered him in like a breath of fresh air. Then, through an act of folly, he got himself involved in the Helping Hambantota scandal. It was after a lot of soul-searching that we broke that story, at the time urging him to return the money. He did so. By the time he did, several weeks later, a great blow had been struck to his reputation.

In the wake of murder and continuing threats and harassment to journalists, the President makes all the usual sanctimonious noises and calls upon the police to hold a swift and thorough inquiry. No sooner was he informed of the threats to Frederica Jansz and Munza Mushtaq than he asked the police to carry out a “very thorough investigation” into the death threats.  An investigation by the Criminal Investigations Department immediately commenced. But like all the inquiries he has ordered in the past, nothing will come of this one, too.

The recent investigation ordered by the President into the death threat received by Dr. Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu, Executive Director for the Centre for Policy Alternatives, is one such example.

Even more damning in this context is the police investigation into the murder of Lasantha Wickrematunge.  To date, his murderers remain at large while the police have no clues which would lead them to his killers.  The police, in fact, have been unable to apprehend a single killer of all those 11 journalists murdered in the last two years – nor have they apprehended anyone involved in ruthless attacks on over 30 media workers in the last two years. Every one of these attacks occurred under the watch of the President.
Sadly, for all the dreams the President has espoused for this country in the name of patriotism, he has trampled on human rights, nurtured unbridled corruption and squandered public money like no other president before him.

As a result, this newspaper can reach only one conclusion: that all of these attacks, including the killings, must have state patronage, collusion, or both.   Which is why the murderers and attackers continue to roam free to issue deadly threats and carry out unabated attacks shielded by politicians and bureaucrats drunk with power.  We can only say this. They cannot see it now, but they will come to regret their children having so rich an inheritance of blood. It can only bring tragedy. As for us at The Sunday Leader, it is with a clear conscience that we can go to meet our Maker.

Frederica’s letter to the President….

His Excellency
President Mahinda Rajapaksa
Temple Trees
Colombo 03.

October 28, 2009.

Your Excellency,

Last week, on Thursday, October 22, both myself and my News Editor Munza Mushtaq received two death threats. The letters inside the envelopes addressed to us were written in red ink with identical wording in Sinhala stating, “Thopi Pethi Karanawa Liwoth.” The letters had been posted from Havelock Town on 21.10.2009.

Our former Editor-in-Chief, Lasantha Wickrematunge, received a similar written threat in Sinhala also in red ink stating “Liwoth Maranawa.” Three weeks after he received this letter he was assassinated on January 8, 2009 along Attidiya Road by assassins riding motor-cycles.

On Tuesday, October 27th, we made a complaint at the Mount Lavinia Police Station so that an inquiry is held by the police.  We consider this a serious threat to our lives which warrants a proper investigation. We feel that this death threat has been sent to us which is similar to that of the late Lasantha Wickrematunge.
We also suspect the reason to be some of the articles which were written recently on reports submitted by the European Union and the United States Congress.  These articles were mere reproductions of the report without comment and were official documents released to the media.

I also brought this incident to the notice of SSP Mount Lavinia Hemantha Adhikari on the day we received the written threats through a letter written to him on October 22, 2009.

I have attached to this letter photocopies of the letters received with the envelopes and also a photocopy of the threat issued to the late Lasantha Wickrematunge as productions.

When I met with you two months ago you were kind enough to offer me every assistance in my work asking me to telephone you if and whenever I believed I required your intervention in any matters.   To date I have not taken you up on that offer.

However, I am now writing to you seeking your intervention and requesting a formal investigation into the threats that both Ms. Mushtaq and I received last week.

When I met with you we had a very cordial and frank discussion where you spent an hour with me discussing the future of The Sunday Leader, my functions as its new Editor and even reminisced about the late Lasantha Wickrematunge.  On that occasion, you agreed that the newspaper had taken a very definite and clear shift in terms of editorial policy and that The Sunday Leader was no longer perceived to be biased or partial on any front.
I have tried hard and I believe I have been successful in steering this course.  If and when we do publish reports that appear to be critical of your government it is done with responsibility observing the highest principles of professional journalism.

Despite your assurances to me at the time we met, I have since been defamed on a government website namely, the Media Centre for National Security which in September carried a scurrilous article against me which attributed certain statements I had made in an interview to al Jazeera that were simply not true and taken out of context.  At the time, I informed Mr. Lakshman Hulugalle and to his credit he immediately removed the offending piece from the web page. Strangely however Mr. Hulugalle at the time insisted he had no prior knowledge that the said item had even been posted on the website which comes directly under his purview and that of the Defence Ministry.
The Sunday Leader as you are aware has consistently in the entire 15 years of its existence come under attack. We have been burnt, bombed, sealed, harassed and threatened, culminating in January this year with the brutal killing of Lasantha Wickrematunge.

I can only conclude that these attacks on the newspaper continue because we say it like we see it: whether it be a spade, a thief or a murderer, we call it by that name. We do not hide behind euphemism. The investigative articles we print are supported by documentary evidence. We have exposed scandal after scandal, and never once in these 15 years has anyone proved us wrong or successfully prosecuted us.

From us you learn the state of your nation, and especially its management by the people elected to give our children a better future.
While I make no claim to sharing a personal friendship with you Mr. President, I have for the better part of my journalistic career which spans over 20 years been in touch with you on a number of issues.  And during that time I believed that you stood apart from most politicians in this country – in your fight to ensure that the right to freedom of expression and justice prevails.

It is with this faith in you that I write this letter.   I trust you will in your vow to protect democratic rights and freedoms ensure that The Sunday Leader which by your own admission to me you said was a necessity in this country will be allowed to continue without further harassment, threats or worse — murder.

I sincerely hope you will insist that a full and fair investigation is carried out to find out who sent Ms. Mushtaq and me two death threats.  Nothing justifies a death threat to a journalist in a country espousing democratic freedoms.

Thanking you,
Sincerely,
Frederica Jansz
Editor.

Cc: Mr. Gotabaya Rajapaksa – Secretary Defence – Public Security Law & Order
Mr. Jayantha Wickremaratne – Inspector General of Police

INDEX on censorship

Sri Lanka: Sunday Leader Editors threatened

By Padraig Reidy

28 Oct 09 – 3:28 pm

In April of this year, Sunday Leader proprietor Lal Wickrematunge accepted an Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression Award on behalf of the beleaguered Sri-Lankan newspaper. Lal’s brother Lasantha was assassinated in January 2009. The Sunday Leader had been, and continues to be, a thorn in the side of President Mahinda Rajapaksa, and his brother, Defence Minister Gotabaya Rajapaksa. In recent months, the paper has been sued for contempt of court after publishing a profile of the defence minister. Lawyers defending it have been described as “traitors” by government agencies.

Now the Leader reports that Frederica Jansz, Editor-in-Chief and Munza Mushtaq, News Editor, have received threatening letters similar to those received by Lasantha weeks before his murder. In a forthright editorial, The Sunday Leader has outlined its response to the threats:

“The Sunday Leader has been a controversial newspaper because we say it like we see it: whether it be a spade, a thief or a murderer, we call it by that name. We do not hide behind euphemism. The investigative articles we print are supported by documentary evidence. We have exposed scandal after scandal, and never once in these 15 years has anyone proved us wrong or successfully prosecuted us.

“From us you learn the state of your nation, and especially its management by the people you elected to give your children a better future. Sometimes the image you see in that mirror is not a pleasant one. The journalists who hold the mirror up to you do so publicly and at great risk to themselves. That is our calling, and we do not shirk it.”

The Sunday Leader is an important independent voice in a country that is sliding into autocracy. Sri Lanka’s authorities and the international community must strive to ensure that its reporters and editors can work free from intimidation and violence.

Death threats sent to paper of slain editor in Sri Lanka

New York, October 28, 2009 — The Committee to Protect Journalists is greatly concerned by ongoing threats to Sri Lanka’s journalists and media organisations. Anonymous letters with death threats, at left, recently sent to Sunday Leader Editor-in-Chief Frederica Jansz and News Editor Munza Mushtaq echo those that ended in the death of the paper’s founder, Lasantha Wickrematunge, in January.

“Our concern is that these most recent threats, like so many others, and the deaths of 11 journalists since President Mahinda Rajapaksa came to power in 2006, will remain unexplained and those behind them will remain unprosecuted,” said Bob Dietz, CPJ’s Asia program coordinator. “The air of impunity surrounding violence against the media is having a chilling effect on journalists.”

The written threats are “almost identical to what Lasantha got three weeks before he was murdered,” Jansz told CPJ in an e-mail message. No one has been charged or prosecuted in Wickrematunge’s death. The editor was killed in his car on his way to work on a busy street in a suburb of Colombo. According to his brother Lal Wickrematunge, chairman of the paper’s parent company, Leader Publications, the editor had been receiving anonymous death threats for months.

According to Jansz, the two letters she and Mushtaq received on October 22 are identical — written in red ink, postmarked October 21. Both letters threatened: “If you write anymore, we will kill you and slice you into pieces,” Jansz said. The Sunday Leader has a long history of being critical of the government, but Jansz said she thinks the latest threat stems from a controversy surrounding an interview she gave to al Jazeera about footage aired by Britain’s Channel 4 News that apparently showed a man in a Sri Lankan military uniform executing Tamil prisoners, some unclothed and with their hands tied behind their backs. The government denied the video’s validity, and claimed Jansz’s comments supported claims of the video’s accuracy.

Sri Lankan Editors receive threats

The death threat to Lasantha three weeks before he was killed bears startling similarities to the death threats received last week

By B. Muralidhar Reddy

COLOMBO: Yet another Editor and News Editor of the paper headed by Lasantha Wickrematunge, Editor of the Colombo-based Sunday Leader who was gunned down in broad-day light by unidentified gunmen in January, have received death threats.

A report on the front page of the paper dated October 25 under the title “And now they come us” said, “Once again editors at The Sunday Leader are under threat. Last Thursday, October 22, Frederica Jansz, Editor-in-Chief of this newspaper and Munza Mushtaq, News Editor, were both sent two hand written death threats by post.”

Mahinda Samarasinghe, Minister for Human Rights and Disaster Management, in response to questions at a news conference here said the government would  investigate the alleged threat and get to the bottom of the matter. “The two letters are identical — written in red ink and appear to have been posted on October 21, 2009. Coincidentally, the late Lasantha Wickrematunge, founder Editor-in-Chief of The Sunday Leader was sent a similar missive — also written in red ink — in December last year, three weeks before he was murdered,” said the paper.

The report said The Sunday Leader has continued to come under attack. It said that in May, Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa brought a fresh case against it and Mr. Jansz alleging contempt of court for having carried a profile on him days after he won the war. “Thereafter, continuing this war against The Sunday Leader, in September, the web page of the Media Centre for National Security carried a slanderous article refuting certain statements made to al Jazeera by Frederica Jansz in relation to the infamous Channel 4 video.” The report said the paper had been controversial “because we say it like we see it: whether it be a spade, a thief or a murderer, we call it by that name. We do not hide behind euphemism.”

14, Kelankaduwa Place, off First
Chapel Lane,
Colombo 06, Sri Lanka.
Tel: 2581202, 2584701 Fax: 2581202

P. H. Manatunga
B.Sc. (Hons.)(Cey.), LL.B.(Cey )
Attorney-at-Law
Examiner of Questioned Documents

29th October, 2009

My reference no. M9/2009

Report on the examination of the documents forwarded by Mr. Nimal Gunatillkeke, Retired Deputy Inspector General of Police, Chairman, Guardian Investigations (Private) Limited, 10/7C, Greenlands Lane, Colombo 5 with his letter dated 27th October, 2009

2. I have marked the envelop addressed to Mrs. Fredrica Jansz as P2a and the threatening note contained inside it as P2; the envelope addressed to Mrs. Munza Mushtaq as P3a and the threatening note contained inside it as P3; and the envelope addressed to Late Mr. Lasantha Wickrematunge as P1a and the piece of News Paper contained inside it as P1.

3. Examination and comparison of the writings on the above documents have revealed that the Sinhala writings on P2, P2a, P3 and P3a have been written by one person.

4. The Sinhala writing on the piece of news paper marked P1 shows some similarities with the Sinhala writings on P2, P2a, P3 and P3a indicating that the person who wrote P2, P2a; P3 and P3a could have written the writing on P1. However, a definite opinion is not possible due to the paucity of writing on P1.

5. The writing on the envelop P1a being in English cannot be compared with the Sinhala writing on the rest of the documents.

P.H. Manatunga
Retired Government Examiner of Questioned Documents.

Mr. Nimal Gunatilleke
Chairman
Guardian Investigations (Private) Limited
10/7C Greenlands Lane, Colombo 5

Amnesty International USA

Press Release
Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Sri Lanka must investigate death threats against two more journalists
The Sri Lankan authorities must act to ensure the safety of two female editors at a national newspaper who received death threats last week, Amnesty International said.

The organisation also called for an immediate investigation into the threats, received by Frederica Jansz, Editor-in-Chief of The Sunday Leader, and the newspaper’s News Editor, Munza Mushataq.

The threats, which were written in red ink, were delivered by post to the newspaper on 22 October.

The founder and former Editor-in-Chief of the newspaper, Lasantha Wickrematunge, was murdered in January three weeks after receiving a similar death threat also written in red ink. No one has yet been prosecuted for his murder.

The most recent threats relate to the coverage by The Sunday Leader of a video, broadcast on UK TV station Channel Four in August, which allegedly showed Sri Lankan soldiers executing Tamil prisoners.

The Sri Lankan government has stated that the video had been faked, but on 18 October The Sunday Leader printed an article on its front page, highlighting a report that an analysis of the video had concluded that the footage had not been tampered with or edited.

Reporters Without Borders condemns threats

26 October 2009
SRI LANKA

Reporters Without Borders urges the Sri Lankan authorities to take all necessary measures to investigate threatening letters received six days ago by Frederica Jansz and Munza Mushtaq, two journalists who work for the Leader Publications media group. “We will slice you up if you do not stop your writing,” the letters said.

At the same time, senior newspaper employees have been questioned by the police about their sources in a new attack on editorial independence.
“The police must treat these death threats written in red ink with the utmost seriousness, especially as they were sent to two journalists whose press group has repeatedly been the target of physical violence,” Reporters Without Borders said. “We urge the police to track down and arrest those who wrote these letters.”

The press freedom organisation added: “It is also vital that the authorities order the security forces to put a stop to their unwarranted summonses and arrests of journalists, and to register the complaints submitted by journalists when they are physically attacked.”

Vincent Brossel
Asia-Pacific Desk
Reporters Without Borders
33 1 44 83 84 70
asia@rsf.org

For immediate release –
28 October 2009

PRESS RELEASE

Sri Lanka: Journalists still under threat, even as conflict ends

ARTICLE 19 is concerned that Sri Lankan journalists remain under threat, despite the official ending of the country’s decades-long civil conflict in May this year.  Two editors from the Sri Lankan newspaper The Sunday Leader, Frederica Jansz and Munza Mushtaq, are the latest to receive death threats, handwritten in red ink and delivered on 22 October.

The death threats arrived after the paper published a report on video footage allegedly showing Sri Lankan government soldiers executing Tamil prisoners.  The footage, which was broadcast in the UK on Channel Four news, was deemed inauthentic by the government.  However, The Sunday Leader ran a technical report from the USA stating that it had not been faked.

The Sunday Leader’s previous Editor, Lasantha Wickrematunge was assassinated in January this year, three weeks after receiving a similar letter.   After his death, The Sunday Leader published a posthumous editorial by Wickrematunge in which he blamed the Sri Lankan government for attacks on journalists.  He wrote: “Electronic and print media institutions have been burnt, bombed, sealed and coerced.  Countless journalists have been harassed, threatened and killed.  It has been my honour to belong to all those categories and now especially the last.”

The Sunday Leader’s Managing Editor Lal Wickrematunge told ARTICLE 19 today that they have lodged an official complaint and written to President Mahinda Rajapaksa this morning.

Journalist and former Convener of the Sri Lankan Free Media Movement Uvindu Kurukulasuriya comments: “The Sri Lankan government has failed to investigate the murder of Lasantha and bring his killers to justice and now there are the same death threats against his successors.”

ARTICLE 19 calls on the Sri Lankan government to immediately investigate the death threats against The Sunday Leader Editor-in-Chief Frederica Jansz and News Editor Munza Mushtaq, and to ensure the safety of both women.