Dumbstruck in Colombo

Thu, Sep 3 02:30 PM

Recent experience shows that States battling the enemy within, especially the scourge of terrorism, draw a fine line between truth and treason. A 20-year jail term for Sri Lankan journalist J.S. Tissainayagam on charges of flouting the country's stringent anti-terror law, the Prevention of Terrorism Act, might be the first time a journalist has been charged under this law.

But he is definitely not the first Lankan journalist to have earned the ire of the establishment. Earlier this year, the editor of the well-known Sunday Leader, Lasantha Wickramasinghe, was gunned down for criticising Colombo for its alleged atrocities against civilians, having eerily predicted his own fate in an editorial before he was murdered.

According to Amnesty International, at least 14 Sri Lankan journalists and media workers have been killed since the beginning of 2006. Many more have been forced to flee the country.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa's government has been dismissive of international indignation and continues to ride roughshod over civil liberties, having denied access to all reporters and international aid agencies during the final military push against the LTTE. It continues to deny all allegations of abuse and misuse of State power, while blatantly stifling dissent with the aid of wartime emergency laws. Colombo's belligerence does not bode well for the future of freedom in a country that has fought so hard for peace.

It serves the government to address the allegations levelled against it and to stop persecuting its detractors. Its credibility as a modern democratic State depends on it.

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