Media and Violence
Editors note: A Sinhala version of this article, in the form of a PDF, can be found here.
Armed struggle and media freedom
Night of fifth of this month, was a sleepless night for us. Reason being that former journalist Lalith Seneviratne was abducted from his residence. That night, all of us tried our best in every possible manner to save his life.
The next night, the sixth, was once again a sleepless night. This time it was due to the news that said the “Akuna†media staff including Lalith Seneviratne had accepted they have in collaboration with the LTTE, resorted to violent acts in the ‘South’. This created a serious confusion that night, as to what stand we could now take on this matter.
Lalith Seneviratne, Sisira Priyankara and Nihal Serasinghe, all activists of the Railway Union Federation’s bi-monthly publication “Akunaâ€Â, were abducted on the night of 05th February. Abductions are plainly a violation of the law, in a democratic society. We condemned all those abductions. We demanded that they be presented in courts, if any state institute had in fact taken them under custody.
The LTTE connection
Next day, the government announced that all three of them accepted they were a part of a movement which accepted armed struggle against neo-colonialism to capture state power. More over, the government announced that they have accepted working with the LTTE and have owned they have carried out armed violence in the South.
Do these news statements nullify the statements we made at the time of their abductions ? Do we become indirect associates of their armed movement ?
The first phone call on the abduction of Lalith Seneviratne was received on 05th night, at about 11.30 pm. At that time, his wife and two other media colleagues were at the Athurugiriya police station to make a complaint. When they were contacted over the phone, it was revealed the Athurugiriya police was totally unaware of this incident.
Vasu’s message
There after Vasudeva, a member of the Civil Monitoring Committee on abductions was contacted. He had in turn contacted the Athurugiriya police and had been told that the CID had not taken Lalith into custody.
Those who took away Lalith had told his wife Kanthi, they are from the CID. But now Vasu was told the CID knew nothing about this.
We then decided to go public about this abduction, as all such efforts in finding some source of information on his where about, became futile. Ours was an effort to safeguard a basic human right.
Mahinda Rajapaksa’s past
We felt this incident should be brought to the notice of Mahinda Rajapaksa, as he was also active against similar abductions and disappearances during 1988 – 90 period. During that period when Mahinda Rajapaksa was working closely with Human Rights Organisations against violations of rights, in the South, abductions and disappearances were carried out in the pretext of wiping out terrorism. Mahinda Rajapaksa’s popular image which paved the way for him to ascend the presidency, was partly etched by his campaigns against the government on abductions and disappearances through movements like the Mothers’ Front.
There is a tradition in this country to protest against any abduction, whether carried out by the state or by any an armed group and also ignoring the politics of the victim. Every political party in this country, some time in their history at least, had played such roles in opposing abductions. But its only a few in the Human Rights Movement who campaigned for a sustainable approach in enforcing law and order in protesting against abductions and disappearances. We of the Free Media Movement, based on such past experience, upheld this principle in protesting against the abduction of the three Trade Union media activists.
Real challenge
The real challenge in safeguarding social values in a democratic society is not during peaceful times. That comes when facing brutal forces. Therefore every democratic movement and organization have a right to protest against torture, abductions and extra judicial killings. Unfortunately, such forces are deplete now. While the likes of Charles Abeysekera are not found in civil society movements, likes of Mahinda Rajapaksa are not there in the opposition.
In the past, during the post 1983 period, there were those who tried to form revolutionary political movements in the South, in collaboration with armed groups in the North. Some had arms training in the North. Armed robberies were carried out to raise funds. Few of them did hold ministerial portfolios later in their life and some even today, are influential personalities in the government. They were similarly arrested or abducted around 1985. Charles Abeysekera then assisted in strengthening the Human Rights movement which even went to the extent of providing legal aid through the launch of the broad platform, Committee for the Release of Political Prisoners (CROPP).
It is good if those who feel or oppose the stand taken by the Free Media Movement in protesting against these abductions, could reflect on that past. We honour that tradition.
The military itself
There is yet another that needs mention. There are those who scheme to take into custody the media personnel who stand for media freedom, on the pretext that some journalists are LTTE collaborators. They should not forget that the military itself owns that there are collaborators in the armed forces too. The media later reported that some of those accused were subsequently found innocent of the charges made against them.
In a democratic society, every citizen has a right to live under the protection of the law. The law should prevail and the judiciary should deliver verdicts at all times. All others could only accuse. Every individual has the right to prove his innocence in courts and will be considered innocent, until proven guilty.
We stand for that right. Not to drive fear into society or destroy the society through terror and violence. We are uncompromisingly against any terror and violence, who ever resorts to such means.
Sunanda Deshapriya
08.02.2007
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Thanks for this – after reading some of the comments in the media and the SL blogs (or at least the few on Kottu) I’ve not found anything from the FMM that really does address all the allegations against it save for this.
Sunanda – two questions. Today’s Island (I think) and the Defense website specifically mention that you supported the release of those who were arrested. Is this true? I know that there have been so many allegations against you and FMM, and it can’t be a nice job to be in to face all that criticism, but I guess the perception given by the very media that you fight for is that the FMM is biased / LTTE supporters.
How true is this?
Sorry for my ignorance – and I hope that Groundviews doesn’t think my comment to be one that will bring in the kind of hate & nonsense that I’ve seen elsewhere in this website.
Thanks for that post Sunanda and outlining what happened with those reporters. I totally agree that there should be proper law and order and procedure followed in how people are arrested, questioned and detained and if these people were not arrested in a transparent manner, to me thats the bigger story. What this group did affects the public, and is not to be condoned, but what the state did in the way they arrested people totally violates citizen rights, including yours and mine.
While I am relying on the FMM version for this, any public servant especially in forces or police who reads this should remember that that is what you are. You are servants of the public. You are not keepers of the peace, or watchdogs of the community, and your salaries are paid by citizens.
Emergency regulation doesn’t change anything.
To resort to sudden abductions, and nontransparent behaviour is to behave in the very way that terrorists or criminals are accused of behaving and it does greater harm in terms of the public interest than what little advantage there is in surreptitously trying to nab a group of people.
Sunanda, if what you say is true, then the manner in which these people were taken into custody violates that which the President himself outlined in July last year:
“Under these directives no person shall be arrested or detained under any Emergency Regulation or the Prevention of Terrorism Act No. 48 of 1979 except in accordance with the law and proper procedure and by a person who is authorized by law to make such an arrest or order such detention.”
http://www.presidentsl.org/data/html/news/200607/20060704news2.htm
I’m not a lawyer – so am I reading this right? Strange that this wasn’t reported in the media.
I think Free Media Movement should have made further investigations into the matter before issuing a press release and organising a protest. As Sonique points out, large sections of the SL society already have a negative perception of the FMM, and this incident has only made it even worse. It all depends on what FMM’s real objective is. Do they really want to carry out their duties as an independent media freedom watchdog in Sri Lanka, or do they just want to get on the news so that FMM could pump up its organisational ego? If it’s the former, as we hope, then it’s important for them to have *respect* and *credibility* among the average Sri Lankans, not just the Peaceniks, the Tigers or the Ranilians.
We all know what happened to the proverbial boy who cried wolf. There was no one to his rescue when the real wolf finally came around. Likewise, even a genuine accusation by FMM in the future will not get the attention it deserves when they’ve been discredited to such an extent. That’s why I think it’s important that FMM saves the tantrums for cases that are proven beyond reasonable doubt.
The families of these “journalists” were informed at the time of their “abduction” that they are being arrested by the Criminal Investigations Department. Why hadn’t the FMM made proper inquiries from CID before all this drama? Being loosely associated with a trade union newsletter does not make them bona fide journalists. Was there any evidence to link their arrests with any of their media related activities?
Perhaps FMM wasn’t happy with the lack of transparency and the disregard for “due process” in the early stages of custody. But surely this is reasonable considering the weight of the charges. These were urban terrorists, (allegedly) armed, trained and dangerous. CID needed to move in swiftly and silently to crack apart the group. They operate the same way when dealing with other types of organised criminal activities (esp drug rings).
For better or for worse, FMM is the only non-partisan organisation in Sri Lanka that stands for media freedom. It’s in all of our interest to see that it’s effective in doing what it’s meant to do ie. to fight real and existing (aot. fake/imaginary) threats to our rights and liberties. I might be easy to spoon feed foreign affiliates with cliched stories about brave reporters being persecuted by ze evil corrupt government, but earning the trust of ordinary Sri Lankans takes a tad more honesty, hard work and a vision.
JM,
You raise some questions, which would have been excellent had we the Rule of Law culture and constitutional democracy. The more politically salient facts are as follows.
A bunch of civilian-clothed thugs arrive in unmarked white vans (already becoming synonymous with the Goni Billa of 1980s yore), grab you in the evening, and take off. Contemporaneous enquiries reveal that no police or invenstigative authority can confirm that they have been arrested (which as you know is a legal term necessitating certain procedural requirements to be fulfilled, notwithstanding the fact that selected clauses of the Criminal Procedure Code governing arrests have been suspended by Emergency Regulations, and by the re-operation of the PTA ).
Then two days later, the government spokesperson is on public record stating that these persons have in fact been ‘arrested’ and that they have ‘confessed’ to connections with the LTTE. If arrests can happen, however eggregious the alleged crime, by way of abduction; and that we can have trials of culpability by government and military officials displaying videos of ‘confession’ by suspects, what kind of bestial society is this? Why does not the utter moral despicability of this strike anyone? Has Sri Lankan society become so base and callous that we do not give a damn about liberty, personal security and constitutional rights? And that we give license to arbitrary arrest and torture in this way, just because we don’t sanction the methods of the LTTE?
The point is that it does not matter whether the person(s) the State arrests is a common pickpocket or a suicidal Black Tiger. The point is that the State is the guardian of the Rule of Law, of the Bill of Rights, and however objectionable the LTTE or its methods of resistance, it does not validate any action of the State that falls short of international standards regarding individual rights and liberty.
It is such a tragedy that nearly 60 years after independence, we are so utterly underdeveloped and tolerant of totalitarianism, that we should forget about constitutional government and go back to the system of government as existed in Kandy in the year 1815. At least then, there would be no need to justify arbitrariness, absolutistism, slavery and torture against any inconvenient rule of law based standard.
‘abduction’ part of the story is based on the testimony of the arrested persons’ familiy as i understand, who has a interest in not divulging the truth. so to say arrest did not confirm to law is a mere allegation. to talk about violations of rule of the law, human rights, etc. bc of such allegations is the error fmm committed. some commenters here have not understood that even now, and are repeating the same error.
if we examine the above post it is clear that fmm did not make proper inquiries from the cid, instead relying on indirect methods and unrealible political sources. then based on that they issued press releases and organized protests. this is not the first time this kind of activity was observed with regard to fmm. as just mal says this is not the way to regain their long lost credibility.