Sri Lankan journalist Prageeth Eknaligoda went missing Sunday night in Colombo. A senior police official told Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) he was too busy with Tuesday's presidential election to make the case a priority.
Eknaligoda, who writes political analyses for the Lankaenews website, left work at about 9 p.m. but did not arrive home and has not contacted any family members or friends. He had told a close friend he thought he had been followed for the past few days.
“Given the current political tension, it is extremely worrying that journalist known for criticising the government should disappear in the capital,” Paris-based RSF said. “With rumours of premeditated violence against journalists circulating, we expect a rapid response from the authorities designed to find Eknaligoda safe and sound.”
Eknaligoda’s wife told RSF she reported his disappearance to police stations in the Homagama and Rajagirirya-Welikada districts of the capital, and police officers took her statement.
A fellow journalist told RSF that Eknaligoda had been threatened because of his political analyses, “Last week he wrote a long comparative analysis of the two main candidates for the presidential election that was published in Sinhalese on the Lankaenews site. He sided with the opposition. We fear that his disappearance is linked to that article.”
Eknaligoda, who works for the newspaper Sirata as well as Lankaenews and is also well-known as a cartoonist, was previously abducted for a few hours on August 3. Sunday's disappearance comes one day after the leading opposition candidate, General Sarath Fonseka, accused the government of planning violence in order to scare voters.
