Sri Lankan journalists face severe persecution

At least 11 Sri Lankan journalists were driven into exile in the past 12 months amid an intensive government crackdown on critical reporters and editors, said a new survey from the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) released Wednesday. "Sri Lanka is losing its best journalists to unchecked violence and the resulting conditions of fear and intimidation that are driving writers and editors from their homes," said Joel Simon, CPJ executive director. "This is a sad reality in countries throughout the world where governments allow attacks on the press to go unpunished." Worldwide, 39 journalists fled their home countries in the past 12 months - a decline from a record 82 in the prior year - after being attacked, harassed, or threatened with violence or imprisonment. The decline reflects in large part circumstances a decline in the violence in Iraq. As in prior years, most journalists who fled their homes in the past 12 months were driven out by violent attack or the threat of assault. At least five journalists who sought exile in the past year were severely beaten prior to their departure, CPJ research shows. Another 24 had received threats against their lives or those of their families. Top journalists have been killed, attacked, threatened, and harassed since the Sri Lankan government began to pursue an all-out military victory over the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE) in late 2006. Many local and foreign journalists and members of the diplomatic community believe the government is complicit in the attacks, said a CPJ special report. Sri Lankan journalists have faced severe retribution for producing critical coverage of government military operations against Tamil rebels. Journalist and editor-in-chief of the Sunday Leader, Lasantha Wickramatunga, a fierce critic of the government, was murdered by two men on motorcycles in early January. Anticipating this, he wrote an editorial, "And Then They Came for Me," to be printed in the event of his assassination. "No other profession calls on its practitioners to lay their lives for their art save the armed forces and, in Sri Lanka, journalism," he wrote. Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa denied any government involvement and ordered an investigation of the attack. "There is now a climate of total impunity since there hasn't been a single successful prosecution of any of these deaths or attacks," Jehan Perea, a friend of Wickramatunga who works with the Independent Peace Council of Sri Lanka told the Washington Post in January. Following Wickramatunga's death, six former U.S. ambassadors to Sri Lanka wrote an open letter to Rajapaksa discrediting speculation that the attacks were "carried out not by elements of the Government, but by other forces hoping to embarrass the Government." "We urge you to take steps to reestablish accountability and the rule of law in Sri Lanka. Investigations have been promised before but have been futile." On Jan. 23, the editor of the Sinhala-language weekly Rivira, Upali Tennakoon, and his wife, Dhammika, were attacked by four men on motorcycles while driving to his office. Though his paper was pro-government, Tennakoon had criticised a high-ranking army official. After receiving threatening phone calls at their home, the couple fled Sri Lanka. In May government forces killed almost the entire senior Tamil Tiger leadership, including its leader Velupillai Prabhakaran, ending the 26-year war between the army and the rebels. "There is no LTTE now, because we have totally destroyed their capabilities and their hierarchy," Media Minister Anura Yapa said. Nearly 300,000 ethnic Tamil civilians from the rebels' former stronghold in the north are being held in refugee camps as security forces search the rest of the country for remaining rebels. International relief organisations recently called on the Sri Lankan government to permit greater access to refugee camps, which it denied, citing the possible escape of former LTTE members. "They don't want the media to be talking to people about what happened in the conflict zones," one aid official told the Washington Post, referencing speculation that the government has committed war crimes against the Tamil minority. Along with Sri Lanka, Iraq and Somalia rank high among the nations from which journalists fled in the past year. At least two journalists each from Pakistan and Russia also sought exile in the past year. All five countries are among the deadliest for journalists and among the worst in solving crimes against the press, according to CPJ research. Nearly 400 journalists have been forced into exile worldwide since 2001, when CPJ began compiling detailed data. More than 330 of them remain in exile today only about one in three have been able to continue journalism careers in exile. The survey does not include the many journalists and media workers who left their countries for professional or financial opportunities, those who left due to general violence, or those who were targeted for activities other than journalism, such as political activism.