‘Black January’ demonstration 2013: Protesting a perfect record of impunity

Since 2005, in the month of January alone, the list of violent attacks on media personnel and journalists across Sri Lanka is mind-boggling. There is a very long yet still incomplete list of the attacks by Sunanda Deshapriya published on Groundviews. As he notes,

“Not a single case of killing, assault or arson listed here has been investigated to completion nor have the culprits been brought to book.”

Vikalpa took the photos below from the demonstration in Colombo. As the Committee to Protect Journalists avers,

Black January commemorations in Colombo have become an annual event. Tuesday’s demonstration was the second. The protest aims to recall the series of killings and attacks on journalists in Sri Lanka in recent years, many of them occurring in Januaries past. All of them have gone untried and unpunished, sustaining the country’s perfect record of impunity for those who want to silence media by murder.

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About Groundviews

Located at the Centre for Policy Alternatives in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Groundviews is a citizen journalism website that uses a range of genres and media to highlight critical perspectives on governance, reconciliation, human rights, the arts and literature, democracy and other issues. The site has won two international awards, including the prestigious Manthan Award South Asia in 2009. The grand jury's evaluation of the site noted, "What no media dares to report, Groundviews publicly exposes. It's a new age media for a new Sri Lanka... Free media at it's very best!"

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