Sri Lanka / Asia

  

Sri Lanka: No letup in censorship of war coverage

Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is profoundly dismayed by your government’s use of censorship regulations to restrict coverage of the war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). We are particularly alarmed by the recent decision of the chief censor, Ariya Rubasinghe, to shut down the Tamil-language daily Uthayan and the English-language weekly The Sunday Leader.

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Sri Lanka: As rebels advance, government tightens censorship rules

Your Excellency: CPJ is gravely concerned by your government’s further tightening of censorship restrictions governing coverage of the civil war between the government of Sri Lanka and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The recent regulations are the most draconian ever imposed on the media in Sri Lanka, according to local journalists.

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Bomb explodes at journalist’s home

Click here to read more about press freedom conditions in SRI LANKA. New York, April 4, 2000 — Shortly before midnight on April 3, an explosive device was detonated at the home of Nellai G. Nadesan, a columnist for Veerakesari, the country’s leading Tamil-language newspaper. Nadesan was not injured in the blast, though the explosion…

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Attacks on the Press 1999: Asia Analysis

By Kavita Menon and A. Lin NeumannMuch of Asia remained hostile to a free, independent media, despite the growing consensus that Asian political and economic stability depends in great measure on governments’ willingness to improve transparency and lift restrictions on the press. In China, Burma, Vietnam, and even Malaysia, government suppression of the media is…

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Attacks on the Press 1999: 1999 Death Toll: Listed by Country

[Click here for full list of documented cases] At its most fundamental level, the job of a journalist is to bear witness. In 1999, journalists in Sierra Leone witnessed rebels’ atrocities against civilians in the streets of Freetown. In the Balkans, journalists watched ethnic Albanians fleeing the deadly menace of Serbian police and paramilitaries. In…

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Attacks on the Press 1999: Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka’s increasingly violent political climate has heightened the danger for the country’s journalists. The 16-year-old civil war between the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a guerrilla movement fighting for a separate homeland for the country’s ethnic Tamil minority, continued, and has so far claimed more than 61,000 lives.…

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Sri Lanka: Justice delayed for journalist harassed by Air Force officers

Dear Mr. Kamalasabeyson: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is greatly concerned by the lack of progress in the case involving Iqbal Athas, defense columnist for The Sunday Times, and his alleged harassment by two Air Force officers, who have been indicted for criminal intimidation of Mr. Athas, criminal trespass and unlawful entry into the journalist’s home on February 12, 1998.

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Pakistan: The Press for Change

A Special Report

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Sri Lanka: Reporter murdered outside church

Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) condemns the December 31 murder of Vasthian Anthony Mariyadas, a free-lance radio reporter who was on assignment for the state-run Sri Lankan Broadcasting Corporation when he was shot dead in the northern town of Vavuniya.

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Sri Lanka: Two journalists killed in bomb blast

New York, December 21, 1999 — Two Sri Lankan broadcast journalists were among 22 people killed in an assassination attempt against President Chandrika Kumaratunga at an election rally on Saturday, December 18. Five other journalists were injured by the blast, which also injured Kumaratunga and scores of onlookers. According to reports, a suicide bomber detonated…

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