Fighting for press freedom in Sri Lanka

9 August 2011

“If you are not with the government, you become an instant traitor to the country. They said I should be killed; very clearly, they said I should be killed.” In his 30-year career as a reporter and editor in Sri Lanka, Sunanda Deshapriya says he was non-political, but his reporting on the 25-year civil war and human rights violations in the country rubbed the government the wrong way.
Branded a traitor, his life threatened, Deshapriya sought asylum in Switzerland. Although he continues to write about his home country from afar, Deshapriya knows his stories would be stronger if he was free to be a reporter in Sri Lanka.
“I talk to people back home and try to get a feeling for the story, but... I know my stories are not really full of flesh and blood,” Deshapriya says. “Because I am a marked person, I don’t want to associate with anyone openly in the country; I don’t want to get anyone in trouble. In that sense, it’s difficult sometimes to get the information about what’s happening.”
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Sri Lanka's Rajapaksa in China as West turns up war crimes heat

Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa smiles as he walks the red carpet at the Presidential Secretariat building after taking the oath of office for a second term in Colombo, November 19, 2010.

Credit: Reuters/Andrew Caballero-Reynolds

By C. Bryson Hull     COLOMBO | Tue Aug 9, 2011
 

COLOMBO (Reuters) - Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa landed in China on Tuesday seeking tighter economic ties in a stormy financial world, and against the backdrop of an aggressive Western push for a probe into war crimes allegations.
Rajapaksa was due to attend the Universiade sporting event in Shenzhen and will later meet President Hu Jintao and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao in Beijing, in the latest of his several visits to one of Sri Lanka's closest allies.
The Sri Lankan leader on Monday said economic cooperation was the focus of a trip made on an invitation from Hu in June, with the aim of expanding ties and learning from China's economic growth example.
China is Sri Lanka's largest bilateral donor and in June committed $1.5 billion to Sri Lanka's $6 billion post-war rebuilding plan, having already financed a power plant and new port in Rajapaksa's southern Hambantota electorate.        Full Story>>>