From the Editor's Desk
Threats to journalists continue to haunt democracy in Sri Lanka. The most recent
victim of the vicious campaign against the media by anti-democratic forces is
Keith Noyahr, Associate Editor of ‘The Nation’, a successful weekly
in English, launched only a few years ago.
Noyahr was abducted by unknown individuals on
the evening of 22nd May on his way home and his car abandoned opposite his house
in Dehiwela, a suburb of Colombo. He had been put through prolonged brutal torture
before he returned home seven hours later, badly battered and bruised, and too
shocked to speak about his ordeal. The news of his abduction and maltreatment
produced angry responses from media personnel as well as organisations and individuals
concerned for media freedom, and human and fundamental rights. A large group
of angry journalists held a public demonstration in protest of the horrible
act. The New Democratic Party has issued a statement denouncing the abduction
and attack, and warning of the dangerous trend in curbing media freedom in the
country.
The country has barely recovered from the shock
of the manhandling of the News Director of the Sri Lanka Rupavahini Corporation
on 27th December by goons accompanying Minister Mervin Silva following the failure
of the SLRC to telecast in full a speech by the minister. It was the live broadcast
of the sequel to the attack, where SLRC employees stopped work in protest, restrained
the intruders, and handed them over to the security staff that seems to have
angered the authorities rather than the ugly incident that provoked the protest.
Although Minister Mervin Silva offered to step
down as minister and resign as MP to defuse the rising indignation, the offer
failed to materialise. But five employees of the SLBC have since been individually
attacked and injured, two seriously, by criminal elements. Meantime, some others,
identified as leaders in the protest, have been subject to anonymous threats.
A witch hunt went on for the ‘ringleaders’ of the SLRC protest,
while no action was taken against the real culprits. Thus there is reason to
doubt if those responsible for the abduction of Noyahr will ever be brought
before the law.
Journalists in the South, since 1990, are facing
only now the kind of treatment that has been routine in the North-East, where
newspapers have been forced to shut down or accept a severe form of censorship
under pressure from the government forces as well as by armed Tamil militants.
While pro-government militia groups backed by armed forces have been implicated
in recent attacks on the Tamil media in the North-East, government politicians
have been prominent in threats to the Sinhala and English media in the South.
Even then, Tamils have been the more common targets.
Several journalists have been held in detention
for long periods under Emergency Regulations without charges, and some who won
legal battles for freedom continued to be harassed by unlawful elements. Last
year, the Editor of the Daily Mirror was reportedly threatened by an important
person in government; two newspapers (Maubima and Sunday Standard) forced to
close down; and the Leader group of newspapers faced a violent arson attack
that gutted its printing press. Internet access continues to be denied to Tamilnet,
a fairly popular alternative source of news on the national conflict. Five FM
radio stations (Hiru, Shaa, Gold, Suuriyan and Sun) were closed down in October
2007 and resumed broadcasting in May 2008; significantly, the key person in
control of the broadcasting organisation switched political loyalties following
the closing down.
Ongoing private and public threats to journalists
represent a major threat to the media, accentuated by the plans of the state
to control them in the name of national security, making free expression of
views as hard as under censorship and emergency rule. The fear that the National
Media Policy proposal announced by the government in September 2007 is aimed
to subdue the media is accentuated by the attacks on the media.
The current threat to media freedom needs to
be seen against a staggering number disappearances and killings, whose victims
have mostly been young Tamil males and include humanitarian workers and media
personnel (source: Civil Monitoring Commission, Free Media Movement, and Law
& Society Trust in October 2007) as well as the many arrests of terrorist
suspects held in detention without charges. The threat is part of a complex
problem; and overcoming it requires a negotiated settlement of the national
question, based on the right to self-determination, free of foreign meddling.
Space for foreign intervention on the pretext
of restoring democratic and human rights is already being created by nationalists
on all sides. Rash attacks on the media will merely strengthen the argument
for foreign intervention, put forward by some unaware of and others fully aware
of the long term consequences of foreign intervention. The dangers should be
clear to the politically conscious, and it is time that the genuine left and
democratic forces organised themselves to mobilise the people as a mass movement
to oppose war and defend human and democratic rights.
New Democracy 29
