The Sacred and the Profane
“A tangle within, a tangle without…” Jata Sutta – Samyutta Nikaya In July 2020, Indika Rathnayake, a non-theistic online activist, was summoned to the Organised Crimes Prevention Police Division and questioned for three…
Writers Under Siege
Writers Under Siege
Challenging Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists in Sri Lanka
Brief Many journalists have been killed and subjected to enforced disappearances in Sri Lanka, with the Jayewardene-Premadasa led UNP governments of 1977 to 1994 and Rajapaksa led UPFA government of 2006 to…
Sri Lankan Government Found Guilty of Lasantha’s Murder
Since 1992 at least 1,400 journalists have been killed for bringing reliable information to the public. These murders, and the subsequent impunity, are the ultimate consequence of a hostile environment for press…
The Brother Who Never Came Back: 15 Years Since the Disappearance of Subramaniam Ramachandran
“Even today I believe he will return but if he doesn’t, let him remain missing. If you want to report that he disappeared on the 15th, you can do that. We would…
Challenging Impunity For Crimes Against Journalists
November 2 is the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) in 2020 at least 22 journalists were murdered in retaliation for…
Creating a Safer World for the Truth
Every week a journalist is killed. Killing the truth is the world’s safest crime; in eight out of ten cases the killers go free. Since 1992, more than 1,400 journalists have been killed around…
Trying to Silence a Fearless Voice: The Case of Tharindu Jayawardhana
Tharindu Jayawardhana is one of Sri Lanka’s most outstanding and promising young journalists. His writings and MediaLK, the news website he founded in 2019, are noted for highlighting some of the most critical…
Past is Prologue for Sri Lanka’s Journalists
Photo courtesy of Centre for American Progress Terror tore through me when I heard that my friend and editor of the Nation newspaper Keith Noyahr had been abducted. It was May 2008; civil…
October – A Bleak Month for Freedom of Expression
Today is the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists October was a bleak month for freedom of expression with four cases of assault against five provincial journalists. All five…
Continued impunity: Journalist killings unresolved in 2016
In 2016, Sri Lanka was removed from the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) Impunity Index. Each year, CPJ reviews countries for a 10-year period. If there are five or more unsolved cases, the…
Confessions
Stop this struggle He pleads Of his comrades A revolutionary leader Broken in pain In State Custody They set me on the wrong path He blames, pointing to his friends A young…
Beauty
What beauty in camps? I sit in my favourite chair listening to Beethoven’s last sonata, slient breezes in time. to the music. My world creates a sonata The other shatters all possibility…
Liberation
You claimed to liberate hostages, to conduct the largest rescue operation in history. In other countries people robbed of freedoms, rescued, are treated by doctors, then sent home to be greeted usually…
Belonging
The island belongs to centipede, rat, butterfly, lots of species each with their own habitats, and supervising all arable and fallow land the president king. Minorities may enjoy clean living in freshly…
Einstein was a Refugee
Refugees are sometimes active have agency they Leave, Flee, Sneak Flow over boundary lines unchecked like rivers they Escape, Hide Cross territories they Flood places like unnatural disasters are associated with Asylum…
