Sri Lanka

A number of civil society groups, trade unions and organisations have expressed shock at the charging of Malaysian human rights defender Lena Hendry for being involved in the screening of a Sri Lankan documentary.

The continuing climate of threat and intimidation in Sri Lanka has forced another senior journalist, co-editor of the “Sunday Leader” newspaper, to seek exile with her family.

A BBC Tamil journalist was questioned by the anti-terror police in relation to a telephone conversation he had with two Tamil prisoners in Colombo, Sri Lanka.

Though Sri Lanka guarantees the right to free speech in its constitution and is a signatory to all relevant international covenants, seven media organisations informed a UN delegation visiting the country that these rights have been under severe threat since the last many years.

An army crackdown on peaceful protests against the contamination of drinking water in the western town of Weliweriya, Sri Lanka, has resulted in the death of three protesters and injuries to no fewer than fifteen journalists.

As Sri Lanka prepares to host the biennial Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in November 2013, some journalists have wondered whether they will be able to access the summit given the island nation’s abysmal press freedom record.

A three-thousand word document titled “Code of Media Ethics” was introduced in the Sri Lankan Parliament; it is seen as the prelude to enforcing an intrusive set of norms that could considerably worsen the environment for free journalistic practice.

The Sri Lankan government needs to take serious measures to end enforced disappearances, provide information to families on the fate or whereabouts of their relatives, and prosecute all those responsible, Human Rights Watch said.

Just ten days after an assault on the distribution office of the Tamil newspaper Uthayan in northern Sri Lanka, the paper’s printing press was attacked and parts of it damaged in arson.

An armed attack on a Tamil paper’s distribution office in Sri Lanka may have been prompted by articles about army involvement in the seizure of land from Tamils.

An armed attack on a Tamil paper’s distribution office in Sri Lanka may have been prompted by articles about army involvement in the seizure of land from Tamils.

BBC’s Tamil-language broadcasts in Sri Lanka have been disrupted, in particular transmission of the UN Human Rights Council’s discussion on war crimes in Sri Lanka.

Sunday Leader journalist Faraz Shauketaly, the victim of a recent attempted assassination, had been investigating corruption both within the private and government sectors in Sri Lanka.

Groundviews, one of Sri Lanka’s few remaining independent media sources, pokes fun at President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s recently launched Twitter account.

Three years ago, on 24 January 2010, columnist and cartoonist Prageeth Eknelygoda vanished on his way to work to cover the final campaigning in Sri Lanka’s bitterly contested presidential election. He has not been heard from since.

On the four year anniversary of the murder of journalist Lasantha Wickrematunga, the IFJ joins affiliates in Sri Lanka in paying tribute to his brand of courageous journalism and deploring the dismal failure of the authorities in bringing his killers to account.