Truemors
is reporting from
Member
NP Rank:
NP Rank:
Press freedom campaigner beaten, Sri Lanka keeps its media ban
Share:
by Tamiya | June 3, 2009 at 04:09 am
144 views | 2 Recommendations | 8 comments
The Sri Lankan government celebrated Victory Parade in Colombo, while the human rights violations continued to be carried out by the same government.
In its recent attack on press freedom, the government attacked a prominent press freedom campaigner in Colombo.
A prominent Sri Lankan press freedom campaigner was abducted and beaten in Colombo yesterday in the latest in a string of assaults on government critics.
Poddala Jayantha, the secretary of the Sri Lankan Working Journalists, said that he was pushed into a van by a gang of men, who beat him and shaved his beard and hair before dumping him by the roadside. He suffered head and leg injuries.
Mr Jayantha returned to Sri Lanka only a few weeks ago after repeated threats and intimidation, including an attempt by an armed gang to abduct him from his home, forced him to flee.
At least 20 Sri Lankan journalists have fled after receiving death threats and 14 have been killed since the beginning of the military campaign to crush the Tamil Tiger rebels in 2006. Others have been arbitrarily arrested and tortured or disappeared while in custody.
The Sri Lankan government also kicked out aid workers, while the situations in the dentention camps of the 300,000 IDPs worsens drastically. Food, clothes, shelter, basic hygeine products, and medical support are scarce to these Tamil IDPs, who are detained in these camps without any hope or future.
Sri Lanka is hampering international relief efforts by forcing dozens of British and other foreign aid workers to leave the country because it considers them sympathetic to the defeated Tamil Tigers, The Times has learnt.
Aid organisations say that the policy is costing them tens of thousands of pounds of donors’ money as they struggle to help 280,000 Tamil civilians in internment camps.
“The NGOs are all extremely scared. If you raise your voice you’ll be the next one thrown out,” a senior member of staff in one international aid group said.
The Government deported the Norwegian head of Forut, an Oslo-based NGO, on Saturday, and stopped a British employee of Forut from re-entering Sri Lanka last month.
Advertisement
NowPublic on Facebook
What is NowPublic?
NowPublic lets people work together to cover news events around the world.
Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (8)
at 14:01 on June 3rd, 2009
What proof do you have that the government attacked him? If the government did attack them, why would they just beat him up with sticks and let him go to tell his story to the world. Wouldn't they rather kill him and bury him somewhere?
It's more likely that this is a publicity stunt that comes in the wake of accusations by the arrested Daya Master (of Tamil Tigers) of a number of Sri Lankan journalists having been on the LTTE payroll. Poddala Jayantha may have pre-empted his impending arrest by staging this pathetic stick attack which would help him get asylum in Britain and get a job at the Times.
at 14:44 on June 3rd, 2009
The Sri Lankan government can not afford kill a journalist now, not when there are mounting evidences of war crimes and human rights abuse charges already in many hands.
If the Sri Lankan government is not the culprit here, then why not let a foreign agency investigate the incident without interference?!!
China and India can be the partner in crime, but they would be partner in doing time.
at 02:19 on June 4th, 2009
Sri Lankan government is free and sovereign, admittedly a concept alien to the stateless Tamil refugee-kind. We are not going to allow any damn foreigner to come to our country and investigate anything. Would Sri Lankans go to the UK and investigate attacks against G20 protestors?
If the government was responsible for an attack against a journalist, be it a "stick attack" or an assassination, the backlash would be the same. So why would they even bother. This is not a stupid government, and it was amply demonstrated by their victory against the LTTE, and the subsequent victory against LTTE's white masters at UNHRC.
This attack is a publicity stunt.
at 12:10 on June 4th, 2009
Please don't make me laugh.
Sri Lankan government is FREE (?!!) Free to who ?!! Free to Lasantha Wickramatunga? Free to 16 other media workers killed ? Free to who? Free to Mahinda and Gota gang, that's all. May the Sinhalese chauvinists can join the party as they also lack of values and integrity too.
Victory over LTTE will be a quite short lived one based on the track Sri Lanka taking right now. No attention given to rebuilding the lives of the Tamil IDPs or the Tamils in Sri Lanka.
"This is not a stupid government." - I don't know. I would not hold my breath on this one though.
at 00:51 on June 4th, 2009
It’s really dismaying to know that human rights are being abused by some of us. Discrimination is also in the country another problem today. Age discrimination is becoming a problem. Old age is something most of us will face at some point. The great American author Mark Twain referred to old age as the worst "wanton insult" possible. Age is just a number – just because other people lump you in with seniors and consider you aged doesn't mean anything if you don't let it. Remember, George Foreman knocked Michael Moorer straight to the canvas and into being the butt of jokes at age 45. An urologist won't conduct PSA tests normally. (PSA is a compound which is present in higher quantities in prostate cancer patients.) Some need debt relief well into old age.
at 00:53 on June 4th, 2009
It’s really dismaying to know that human rights are being abused by some of us. Discrimination is also in the country another problem today. Age discrimination is becoming a problem. old age is something most of us will face at some point. The great American author Mark Twain referred to old age as the worst "wanton insult" possible. Age is just a number – just because other people lump you in with seniors and consider you aged doesn't mean anything if you don't let it. Remember, George Foreman knocked Michael Moorer straight to the canvas and into being the butt of jokes at age 45. An urologist won't conduct PSA tests normally. (PSA is a compound which is present in higher quantities in prostate cancer patients.) Some need debt relief well into old age.
at 09:32 on June 4th, 2009
the deprotation of the forut traitors are fully valid.... speak with the facts in hand people.... Please visit the below link http://translate.google.lk/translate?hl=en&sl=no&u=http://www.aftenposten.no/nyheter/uriks/article3100620.ece&ei=KR0mSuLQFsyrjAfG04zbBw&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=9&ct=result&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dranveig%2Btveitnes%2Bforut%26hl%3Den%26rlz%3D1W1GPEA_en
However, it is interesting to note that although FORUT came up with the cock and bull story of taking the flag off before sunset, back home in Norway, this is what Tvetenes has to say " But we did not want to hoist a flag. We are netural in this conflict. Then it is not approprate to celebrate, that one party wins"!!!
The cat is out of the bag people!!!!!! here is the woman now back in Norway, still coughing for the LTTE........
Where was FORUT's neutrality when they hoisted the tamil ealam flag at every function in Killinochchi???? Answer me please.....
the deported Britisher is a well known personality in aiding the LTTE and also fundraising through the TRO, he has been a Vanni resident since 2002, training young carders in the guise of vocational training..... why dont the authorities dig into the forut accounts? raid the office....you will be surprised at what you will uncover.....can somebody please enlighten the proper channels?
at 00:46 on June 5th, 2009
it dosent matter what the tamil ltte ppl say...there all bunch of low caste liars and sucide clowns that has killed many muslim brothers in Sri Lanka...I say every ltte rat be rounded up and shot up.