(RSF/IFEX) – Reporters Without Borders has urged President Mahinda Rajapaksa to give unequivocal orders for three journalists and trade union activists, kidnapped in Colombo on 5 February 2007, to be found and released unharmed. The three, all working for the trade union monthly “Akuna” (“Thunder”), linked to the train drivers union, were all snatched in […]
(RSF/IFEX) – Reporters Without Borders has urged President Mahinda Rajapaksa to give unequivocal orders for three journalists and trade union activists, kidnapped in Colombo on 5 February 2007, to be found and released unharmed.
The three, all working for the trade union monthly “Akuna” (“Thunder”), linked to the train drivers union, were all snatched in the space of six hours from different locations in the capital.
Nihal Serasinghe, formerly of the extreme-left monthly “Diyesa” and a contributor to “Akuna”, was abducted near the Fort in Colombo as he left a printing office. Lalith Seneviratne, a former journalist on the far-left “Hiru”, in charge of page layout at “Akuna”, was seized at his home by men whom his wife identified as plain-clothes police officers from the Criminal Investigation Department (CID). She made a complaint at a police station in Aturugiriya. Editor of “Akuna”, Sisira Priyankara, 38, was snatched at his workplace, a rail company electricians’ workshop. He was recently involved in complaints made to courts by trade unionists against salary hikes granted to minister and the president.
“Any journalist, trade unionist, human rights activist or politician who backs a peaceful solution to the conflict has become a potential target for these well-organised groups of kidnappers who infest the north, the northeast and also the capital,” the worldwide press freedom organisation said.
“Since the murder of Tamil journalist Dharmaratnam Sivaram in Colombo in 2006, it has been clear that these death squads can strike at will wherever and whenever they want. We urge the head of state to mobilise the security forces to find and free these three journalists as quickly as possible”.
The kidnappings came just after dozens of countries meeting on 6 February in Paris had just signed the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, adopted by Sri Lanka.
The organisation Free Media Movement (FMM) held a demonstration in Colombo on 6 February in protest against the kidnappings.
This triple kidnapping comes a few weeks after a group of militants headed by Mervyn Silva, deputy minister of labour, attacked a pacifist meeting in the Colombo suburbs, inciting his supporters to beat the participants. Journalists, including a BBC correspondent covering the meeting, were among those assaulted.
