Spotlight

Media: Lanka’s deadly story 

By Dilrukshi Handunnetti

As the world celebrates World Media Freedom Day today, the Sri Lankan media is compelled to record 29 months of horror and counting.

The year 2009 had a horrifying beginning with state oppression of the media at its highest. The first incident was an arson attack on MTV/MBC networks and the culmination of violence was the brutal slaying of The Sunday Leader Founder Editor Lasantha Wickrematunge on January 8.

It did not stop there, soon after Rivira Editor Upali Tennakoon was assaulted together with his wife causing them to leave Sri Lanka.

Since the ascendancy to power in November 2005, the Rajapakse regime had made every attempt to regulate and prevent the emergence of dissenting opinion in a country that suffers from the spillover effect of an intensified, protracted war.

In a period of gloom for media freedom, perhaps the only heartening recent development was the release of Sudar Oli Editor N. Vidyatharan. Yet, his arrest which originally had tell-tale signs of an abduction that marked an all time low in Sri Lankan media freedom, with regulations to curb terror being used in the arrest of the senior journalist finally culminated in his unconditional release.

He was arrested on February 26 with the government openly accusing him of having LTTE links and even being connected to the LTTE’s thwarted aerial attack on the SLAF Headquarters in Colombo.

A LTTE acolyte

While some government officials and state owned media quickly labelled Vidyatharan as a LTTE acolyte, a Colombo court on April 24 cleared Vidyatharan and ordered his release.

Amidst the latest developments of a murky kind is the sudden and unexplained recalling of former editor of The Nation, Lalith Alahakoon from Sri Lanka’s mission in Islamabad within days of being appointed.

Alahakoon, a veteran journalist counting nearly three decades in journalism was virtually forced out of his newspaper when he was not assigned any duties, following a change of hands at the newspaper’s management level.

The Nation too had suffered shocking violence when its Deputy Editor and defence columnist Keith Noyahr was abducted and assaulted allegedly for insightful reporting on the conflict. Noyahr is among the journalists who fled the country and is lucky to be alive.  The beleaguered paper’s former CEO, Krishantha Cooray continues to live in exile following repeated threats to his life after the assault on Noyahr.

The Sunday Times defence columnist and contributor to Janes Defence Weekly, Iqbal Athas has been publicly branded a terrorist by this government who had his name on many occasions listed in government websites saying as much, as well as verbally referring to him as a pariah.

Terror campaign

The terror campaign against Athas has forced the highly respected veteran journalist into taking refuge overseas and in similar vein to Krishantha Cooray he currently lives overseas and does not write his popular column, The Situation Report in The Sunday Times.

In the past few months, if a singular group of journalists have come under more serious threat than others, in the south, it had been the defence writers. Noyahr and Athas are but the tip of the iceberg with many opting not to write their columns fearing reprisals.

The other vulnerable group of journalists, are those of Tamil ethnicity, hounded and viewed with suspicion due to their ethnicity in a country that boasts of a multi cultural identity with a constitution that denounces discrimination of all kinds.

In a list of 11 journalists killed, seven are of Tamil ethnicity.

So far, the incidents document 28 assaults, 13 arrests and five abductions. 

It is natural in such an oppressive climate to experience less visibility of dissenting opinion with the unwritten rule appearing to be that silence is not just golden but also life saving.

It is in this backdrop that Reporters Without Borders ranked the island 165th out of 173 countries in the 2008 Press Freedom Index, the lowest ranking of any democratic country while  the International Federation of Journalists (IJF) has named Sri Lanka ‘one of the five most deadly places for journalists.’

Killings and abductions

On February 8, The Sunday Leader published some 40 incidents of killings, assaults and abductions of journalists and referred the list to various police stations that were supposedly investigating into the incidents. The police authorities had no information to offer about any of the incidents.

And the statistics have increased with more harassment being recorded, including the arrest of Vidyatharan, the assault and knifing of a Batticaloa based editor Rahmathulla and the abduction of Dr. Dhammika Dissanayake, a senior lecturer at the Sri Jayewardenepura University.

When the list of these horrendous crimes against the media was referred to Police Spokesperson SSP Ranjith Gunasekera, he always had a standard response.  “Investigations are continuing.” There is no need to over-emphasise police inaction and the lax attitude of the authorities.

If the truth be known, there is a pattern to these killings, assaults and abductions. The victims have been largely defence correspondents, those critical of the manner in which the war is being executed, and those such as Wickrematunge clamouring for good governance.

The media coverage on some of these aspects appeared to have enraged the state that openly advocates a policy of crushing opposing views.

The lawlessness experienced when Richard de Zoysa was murdered is now being experienced many fold with systematic elimination of dissenting voices taking place.

Access to information

It is also significant to note that media practitioners and activists together with civic organisations have been clamouring for the liberalising of the media through the introduction of a new act granting access to information. Despite agreement between the two main parties, the 2004 draft of a Freedom of Information Act collects dust in a closet. Instead there is unabashed violence unleashed against the media.

The Sunday Standard suffered tremendously when Chairman Tiran Alles and Managing Director Dushyantha Basnayake were arrested and kept in custody for months for alleged LTTE links, only to be released later without charges being framed. But the vilification of the institution commenced when a Tamil translator cum reporter, Parameshwary was arrested by the TID on uncorroborated charges only to pay her compensation later when the Supreme Court declared her rights were violated through an arbitrary arrest.

When compiling this gruesome report that signifies Sri Lanka’s sheer lawlessness and the safety concerns of the media practitioners, we have been liberal in not make passing references to the dozens of journalists threatened, harassed and intimidated, sometimes by top defence officials, ministers and military or police spokespersons.

We have also ignored recording arson and grenade attacks, closure of institutions, economic pressure being applied and attempts to introduce repressive laws.

Such details appeared inconsequential given that human life had lost its value in this country. 

Two wars

It appears that the Rajapakse regime wages two wars — one against the LTTE and another, against the media.

It is pertinent to note the kind of suffering the media practitioners in the north and the east have been subjected to. They have been working under dire circumstances, victimised regularly by warring Tamil political groups and unable to freely express themselves. The newsprint shortage especially affected the northeastern media houses while security concerns remain significantly high.

As the world speaks of access to information and national legislation to that effect, UN resolutions calling for safety of journalists be given expression to, in Sri Lanka, it is about right to life. 

As for the Media Minister Anura Priyadarshana Yapa’s statements, nothing less than milk and honey flow in this land. Addressing the South Asia Free Media Association (SAFMA) conference in 2008 held in Colombo, Yapa declared that there were 14 TV stations, 32 radio stations and 23 newspapers with immense circulation with private media institutions outnumbering the state controlled. What he forgot to mention was the frightening record during his period of three years as Media Minister.

RSF in a report titled Press Freedom Round Up 2008 released on December 30, 2008 added a note of caution: “When governments are challenged, their most frequent response is imprisonment. And the dozens of murders, in which the involvement of the security is often almost certain, rarely lead to trials, whether in Sri Lanka or Burkina Faso.”

And that’s the question. So many killings, assaults and abductions. Where are the investigations? How many cases have been committed for trial?  And how many more to become statistics?

Despite all the international focus and pressure to conduct speedy investigations, Sri Lanka’s experience has been one of pouring water on a duck’s back. The escalation of violence against the media is similar to an unceasing wave.