Training journalists how to better cover gender-based violence can help challenge attitudes that foster sexual attacks. Helping journalists learn personal skills to safely navigate sexual aggression can help prevent them from becoming victims themselves....
Sri Lanka detains, then releases two visiting journalists
November 1, 2013 12:57 PM ET
With two weeks to go until the start of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Sri Lanka, the government's anti-media policies remain a pressing topic. There are two links below to statements by media support groups today relating to the government's wrongful and heavy handed response to a...
UN rights chief should push Sri Lanka on press freedom
August 23, 2013 1:59 PM ET
When the human rights watchdog for the United Nations visits Sri Lanka this weekend she should forcefully address the government's problematic record on press freedom....
Despite official repression, Sri Lanka media report attack
August 8, 2013 4:33 PM ET
Details are emerging of Sri Lanka's effort to control media coverage of an ugly attack on demonstrators by security forces last week. In Rathupaswala village in the town of Weliweriya, outside Colombo, on August 1, soldiers beat and fired on people protesting what they feared was contamination of their drinking...
Doubts as Sri Lanka says Commonwealth meeting open
July 17, 2013 4:19 PM ET
As Sri Lanka prepares to host the biennial Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Colombo in November, some journalists have wondered whether they will be able to access the summit given the island nation's abysmal press freedom record....
Sri Lanka tries new ways to crush independent media
June 7, 2013 12:05 PM ET
In Sri Lanka, where there has seldom been good news for the media in recent years, things have taken a further turn for the worse, as well as a turn for the bizarre. With President Mahinda Rajapaksa's government secure in its 2010 electoral mandate, its leaders have made fresh moves...
Sri Lankan journalist in UAE still at risk of deportation
June 6, 2013 5:00 PM ET
Lohini Rathimohan, a former television journalist from Sri Lanka, faces an unclear future. The 28-year-old is among 15 Tamil refugees still sheltered in a single room of an aluminum factory at Dubai's Jebel Ali port whose official statuses remain uncertain....
Tamil journalist will not be forced back to Sri Lanka
April 12, 2013 3:56 PM ET
A short note to follow up on an alert we posted Wednesday on the threatened deportation of Lohini Rathimohan (also spelled Lokini), a former television journalist and one of 19 Tamil refugees facing deportation from the United Arab Emirates. Earlier reports said the refugees, who reached Dubai illegally, could be deported this...
Rajapaksa regime under UNHRC, Commonwealth scrutiny
February 22, 2013 12:00 PM ET
On February 13, Navi Pillay, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, said in her annual report to the U.N. Human Rights Council (UNHRC) that Sri Lanka's government has not taken enough steps recommended by its own Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC). Although the LLRC is seen as a flawed...
@PresRajapaksa draws snark, concern, and criticism
February 12, 2013 12:31 PM ET
Here is a quick pointer to one of Sri Lanka's few remaining independent media sources, Groundviews, which just posted a lengthy look at the president's newfound interest in social media: "The Sri Lankan President's Twitter archive and Propaganda 2.0: New challenges for online dissent." In a country where there isn't...