Asia

New York, March 6, 2009–The Sri Lankan government should release a journalist and his two colleagues who have spent a year behind bars on terrorism charges for publishing magazine articles, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

Yesterday’s arrest of Nadesapillai Vithyatharan in a suburb of Colombo was a continuation of the killing, jailing, harassing, and intimidating of Sri Lankan  journalists–and the feeling is that it if it hadn’t been for the quick response of the international community, Vithyatharan’s situation could have gotten a lot uglier.

“If nobody goes, then somebody has to go.” That, according to his editors at APF News, was the personal motto of fallen Japanese video journalist Kenji Nagai, who until his tragic death had reported from conflict zones around the world. That journalistic drive put Nagai in the line of fire during Burma’s 2007 Saffron Revolution,…

“If nobody goes, then somebody has to go.” That, according to his editors at APF News, was the personal motto of fallen Japanese video journalist Kenji Nagai, who until his tragic death had reported from conflict zones around the world. That journalistic drive put Nagai in the line of fire during Burma’s 2007 Saffron Revolution,…

New York, February 26, 2009–The Committee to Protect Journalists questions charges leveled against Sri Lankan newspaper editor Nadesapillai Vithyatharan, who was arrested this morning. According to friends who were with him at the time, police detained Vithyatharan while he was attending the funeral of a friend in Colombo. The arrest comes at a time when…

New York, February 23, 2008–The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes the release from a Thai detention facility of Australian writer Harry Nicolaides but calls upon authorities to reform the draconian lese majeste laws under which he was sentenced.  

As the Sri Lankan government steps up its war with the LTTE, assaults on journalists are on the rise. So are suspicions that the government is complicit in these attacks.

February 2009News from the Committee to Protect Journalists

Responding to news reports about the death of Ernie Rullen, a DXSY radio commentator who was shot and killed by two masked gunmen on the southern island of Mindanao today, we released this statement…

“The government has barred independent journalists from travelling to the war zone”–the description of the Sri Lankan conflict has been among the most often-repeated for almost two years. News outlets want the latest pictures of the war in Sri Lanka and its civilian refugees. But displaced civilians who do manage to leave the war zone…