Sri Lanka

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has condemned the Colombo high court’s indictment of journalist JS Tissainayagam Monday on terrorism charges for articles he published in 2006. Sri Lanka’s Terrorist Investigation Division arrested Tissainayagam, the editor of news website OutreachSL, and five of his colleagues within a few days in March 2008. Three of the group were released later that...

The Committee to Protect Journalists has expressed concern over the attack Monday evening on Namal Perera, freelance journalist and deputy head of the Sri Lanka Press Institute (SLPI), a media rights advocacy group. Perera was attacked by men with iron bars in Colombo while travelling in a car with a British diplomatic official, according to international news reports. Perera is recovering from...

Sri Lankan media owners Wednesday offered a cash reward to catch assailants involved in an attack on a journalist, while the country's media protested against the increasing wave of violence against them, says a Reuters report. A defence analyst attached to Sri Lanka Press Institute (SLPI), along with a British High Commission official, was brutally assaulted on Monday, prompting media groups to...

Twenty-nine global media organisations have appealed to the United Nations to put pressure on Sri Lanka to protect journalists, who have been described as "enemies of the state" for being critical of the government's role in the civil war in the country. The media organisations affiliated to the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) said in a letter to UN Secretary-General Ban ki-Moon that...

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has joined the five leading journalists’ organisations in Sri Lanka to demand that senior Tamil journalist JS Tissainayagam, who spent his 100th day in detention on June 15, be released as no evidence has been provided to sustain a charge against him. Tissainayagam, the editor of the newly formed OutreachSL.com news website, was arrested by the...

The Free Media Movement (FMM) has expressed alarm that another well-known journalist has received a death threat from an unknown caller. Former deputy editor of the Sunday Leader, editor of the monthly magazine Montage and leading investigative journalist and South Asia cocoordinator of the International News Safety Institute (INSI) Frederica Jansz received the death threat at on June 14. The...

Another well-known journalist in Sri Lanka received a death threat Saturday morning from an unknown caller. Former deputy editor of the Sunday Leader, editor of the monthly magazine Montage and leading investigative journalist and South Asia co-coordinator of the International News Safety Institute (INSI) Frederica Jansz received the death threat at approximately 11:30 a.m. The Free Media Movement...

Hudson Samarasinghe, recently appointed the chairperson of the state-controlled Sri Lanka Broadcasting Cooperation (SLBC), called for the death of senior journalist Poddala Jayantha. This outrageous incitement to murder and violence by Samarasinghe was made 8 June 2008 during a breakfast radio talk show called "Isira". Jayantha is the general secretary of Sri Lanka Working Journalists Association...

The Sri Lankan government pressured owners and editors of several independent dailies, including the Nation and the Daily Mirror, to dissuade them from publishing critical or embarrassing articles during a visit by a European Commission trade delegation from June 9-11. "The government is mistaken if it thinks it can improve relations with the EU by using threats to silence the independent press,"...

The Sri Lankan defence ministry has initiated a campaign against independent news media, especially journalists who cover military affairs. The ministry’s website is carrying virulent attacks on journalists critical of the government, accusing them of being in cahoots with the “terrorist enemy,” the Tamil Tiger rebels. Two long articles—headlined “Stop media treachery against armed forces members...