Media Release: Sri
Lanka / 15
November 2013
The
International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) calls on the heads of government
and delegations of the Commonwealth countries, who today begin their bi-annual
summit meeting in the Sri Lankan national capital of Colombo, to lay appropriate
stress on the need for the restoration of democratic liberties and media freedom
in the host country, after a quarter century or more when these have been under
severe stress.
IFJ
affiliates in Sri Lanka have already flagged the issue as an urgent priority.
The Free Media Movement (FMM) has issued a fact-sheet on specific incidents in recent times
which show that the Government of Sri Lanka (GSL) is yet to display any sort of
intent to reverse the severe deterioration in the environment for the media and
journalism in the country.
As recently
as September, the climate of threat and intimidation in Sri Lanka forced senior
journalist Mandana Ismail Abeywickrema, co-editor of the Sunday Leader,
to seek exile. Her husband Romesh Abeywickrema, business editor of the Sunday
Leader and their twelve-year old daughter also left the country. This
followed an armed raid on their home in August and an effort to rustle through
their personal papers in an obvious quest for some documents that they may have
obtained as part of their journalistic practice.
The FMM
reports that since 2005, when the last phase of active hostilities in Sri
Lanka’s long-running civil war began, more than eighty journalists have fled the
country. The FMM has described this as an ongoing “war against
journalism”.
The IFJ and
its partners are especially concerned at the reign of impunity which continues
to prevail for attacks on journalists and media institutions, and the constant
fear that individual media practitioners work under. Even if overt measures of
coercion are less conspicuous than during the war years, political and financial
power is being deployed to silence dissent. Victims of gross human rights
violations during the war years are deprived of a forum through which they can
articulate their grievances and seek redress.
The IFJ and
its associated groups are worried at the failure of GSL to accept any firm
commitments for implementing the recommendations of a commission appointed at
the end of the war, as part of the national reconciliation process. The
recommendations related to free speech and the right to information, though
modest in number, are deeply consequential. Yet, a “National Action Plan” (NAP)
announced in July 2012 to give effect to the recommendations of the high-powered
Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) did not set down any
time-line for the passage of a right to information law and seemed to gloss over
the need to dispel the climate of impunity for attacks on the
media.
Following the
resettlement of the last of the internally displaced persons (IDPs) from the
Menik Farm camp in the northern province late in September 2012, media persons
seeking to travel into the area to report on the quality of life of resettled
communities, encountered numerous obstacles from military officials whose
presence in the area is reportedly, overwhelming.
The IFJ and
its partners observe that the GSL is in default on three main recommendations of
the commission on national reconciliation: restoration of freedom of movement
for media personnel through all parts of the country; the investigation and
prosecution of all known cases involving attacks on media practitioners; and the
enactment of a right to information law.
In addition,
the IFJ and its partners have found that state-controlled media, the Sri Lanka
Broadcasting Corporation, the Sri Lanka Rupavahini Corporation, Channel ITN and
the Lake House publications, have become forums for verbal abuse and
vilification of independent journalists and human rights defenders, often with
dangerous implications for their physical safety and
wellbeing.
Further, news
websites hosting content on Sri Lanka have been subject to arbitrary rule
changes and frequent obstruction with absolutely no legal or constitutional
mandate.
The IFJ and
its partners urge the UPR process in Geneva to particularly underline the
following steps as urgent priorities for the GSL to commit itself
to:
·
The restoration of
independence and accountability to the state-owned media, if necessary by
initiating the process of conversion to public service
media;
·
The enactment of a
law covering working conditions of all journalists and news-gatherers, in line
with other South Asian countries such as India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and
Nepal;
·
The enactment of a
right to information law;
·
Prosecution, on the
basis of credible evidence, of all who have been guilty of attacking journalists
and news gatherers in the recent past; and
·
An effort to bring
back to Sri Lanka all the journalists in exile, with the assurance that their
safety would be guaranteed by the GSL.
As an
immediate priority, the IFJ urges the GSL to order a halt to the stream of
hostile rhetoric over state-owned media channels.
The IFJ also
urges the GSL to allow the free movement of national and international media
staff all over the island, including the war-torn northern province, to allow
the people who are yet to overcome the trauma of the last years of the war, to
speak for themselves and be heard.
