Sandhya Eknelygoda, who has been trying to gain any information about the whereabouts of her disappeared husband, Prageeth, came under harsh questioning from government lawyers about her presence at the UNHRC in Geneva.
(CPJ/IFEX) – March 26, 2012 – The following is a CPJ Blog post:
By Bob Dietz/CPJ Asia Program Coordinator
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.
That campaign of intimidation continues: In the magistrate’s court where Sandhya Eknelygoda has been trying to gain any information about the whereabouts of her husband, Prageeth, who disappeared on January 24, 2010, she came under harsh questioning — observers at the court called it intentionally intimidating — from government lawyers about her presence at the UNHRC in Geneva. Before she returned home from Switzerland, her name had been denounced in the government-controlled media as one of the government’s critics — several of whom have been denounced as “traitors.”
Eknelygoda told colleagues in Colombo that Monday’s entire court session was about how she went to Geneva, who funded her trip, why she betrayed her country, and how much she was paid to do that. Her lawyer objected to the line of questioning, but was overruled, she said.
