CPJ welcomes arrests in 2010 disappearance of Sri Lankan journalist Prageeth Eknelygoda
New York, August 24, 2015–At least four Sri Lankan army officers were arrested on Monday and accused of involvement in the January 2010 disappearance of Prageeth Eknelygoda, a political cartoonist and columnist, according to news reports. Another army officer and two civilians were arrested earlier this month, reports said. The arrests come following a pledge…
Sri Lankan president should ensure improved climate for press freedom
Dear President Sirisena: The Committee to Protect Journalists, an international press freedom organization, is writing to congratulate you on your recent victory in Sri Lanka’s presidential election. As Sri Lanka readies itself for a new chapter in its history, we urge your government to take concrete and meaningful steps to improve the climate for press freedom.
Sri Lanka tries new ways to crush independent media
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 to tighten their control of…
Sandhya Eknelygoda speaks for Sri Lanka’s disappeared
When I first met Sandhya Eknelygoda in May 2010 in her home outside Colombo, she was a distressed mother of two young boys whose husband had gone missing. He was last seen four months earlier, just prior to the elections that returned President Mahinda Rajapaksa to power after the end of the decades-long war with…
A heads-up for Sri Lanka press freedom watchers
Former Attorney General Mohan Peiris has been ordered to testify about a statement he made at the U.N. Committee Against Torture in Geneva on November 9, 2011, in which he said that Prageeth Eknelygoda was alive and living outside the country (see “Sri Lanka’s savage smokescreen”). Peiris will have to appear at the Homogama Magistrate’s Court in…
Sri Lanka Supreme Court slams door on websites
On Wednesday, Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court slammed the door on a case about the shutdown of four websites that had failed to register with the government. In handing down its decision, the Court appeared to rule that freedom of expression in Sri Lanka is not an absolute right and can be restricted–and you don’t need…
Eknelygoda’s wife latest victim of Sri Lankan intolerance
On Thursday and Friday, we wrote about the ugly government backlash to last week’s U.N. Human Rights Council resolution calling for an investigation into Sri Lanka’s alleged abuses of international humanitarian law during its war with Tamil separatists.
Black January? A foreign plot, says Sri Lankan government
On Monday, I wrote about two demonstrations scheduled for Sri Lanka this week. Both were meant to commemorate the ugly string of anti-press attacks in recent Januaries, which has included journalists killed and abducted, television stations bombed, websites attacked, and media offices torched. But Wednesday’s Black January effort, publicized by the Free Media Movement (FMM)…