SRI LANKA: Two testimonies on enforced self paralysis

Lal Wickrematunge, the brother of the assassinated editor of the Sunday Leader, Lasantha Wickrematunge, and until very recently the owner of Leader Publications, spoke yesterday to the BBC Sinhala Service. He stated that it is dangerous today to be engaged in publication work in Sri Lanka. Giving views other than the government's version of things is almost impossible. Under the present conditions media personnel are afraid to engage in free reporting.

Over 50 Skeletons Unearthed ■Matale Mass Grave Investigations Abandoned Midway

Niranjala Ariyawansha
The number of skeletons unearthed from a location at the Matale Hospital, during excavations done to construct a Bio-gas Unit, has risen to 58, and Matale residents allege the investigations into the skeletons have been abandoned midway.

The story of Sunday Leader, Sunil Jayasekara and Frederica Janz

 Sunday Leader master head has now erased Lasantha's picture and his words Unbowed and Unafraid

There were questions then raised about the ethics of a newspaper editor taking the witness stand against a news source for a story carried in her own newspaper under her byline .
FMM activist Sunil Jeyasekara, who worked as deputy editor of Irurasa, the Sinhala language weekly published by the Sunday Leader, came to accept the many months of salary denied as a consequence of the financial distress the group was going through. He continued working out of a sense of commitment, but was told in July by the group chairman, that his services were no longer needed. It is not clear if the termination of his services then had anything to do with a number of hostile articles that the Sunday Leader published around the same time, about the FMM.