Sri Lanka: Government calls journalists “traitors”

23 Mar 12 | Asia and Pacific, Index Index, minipost

Sri Lankan journalists have been dubbed “traitors” by state television, following the adoption of a UN Human Rights Council resolution calling for an investigation into the country’s alleged abuses of international humanitarian law during its war with Tamil separatists. After the passing of the motion on Wednesday, state television said journalists in support of it were helping the defeated Tamil Tiger rebels and “betraying the motherland.” The broadcaster added that, although the journalists who took part in Council sessions were not named, Sri Lankan state television “repeatedly zooms in on thinly disguised photographs of them, promising to give their names soon and ‘expose more traitors.'”

Sri Lankan editor threatened

02 Dec 09 | Index Index, minipost, News and features

The editor of Sri Lankan newspaper Udayan based in Jaffna has said he will lodge a complaint with authorities after receiving another threatening letter. The letter said “You may have to face danger. Completely stop publishing anything in the nature of boosting the terrorists or that gives the impression that the terrorists are still active.” Udayan has been threatened in the past. In 2006 one of their printing warehouses was burnt down and editorial offices fired at. The editor E Saravanabavan told the Sunday Leader that Udayan would continue to publish, albeit cautiously and doubted that an investigation would yield positive results.  Read more here

Death threats to Sri Lankan newspaper

01 Jul 09 | Index Index, minipost

An unknown group calling itself the Tamil United Force to Safeguard the Country has threatened to kill all the employees of the Tamil-language newspaper Uthayan, the leading newspaper in the Jaffna peninsula, if they have not resigned by the end of today. Read more here