Tamil org honours Chief, Service

Four years ago, Toronto Police exercised skill, judgment and discretion under very trying circumstances when a large group of Tamil protestors – women and children included – shut down the busy Gardiner Expressway for nearly five hours.

This was one of several protests that year by members of the Tamil community, demanding the Canadian government do more to help end the civil war in their native Sri Lanka. Policing those demonstrations required a very delicate balancing of competing rights while protecting public safety.

On Jan. 19, Chief Bill Blair was recognized for his ongoing community leadership. He was presented with the inaugural “Leaders for Change Award” at the Canadian Tamil Congress annual Thai Pongal Festival dinner that attracted nearly 1,000 guests.

The new Award honours the unique contribution of an individual who, through their exceptional vision, perseverance and commitment, has redefined and strengthened the need for societal change.

“We wanted the Chief to know that we appreciated the leadership he displayed in allowing the peaceful protests to proceed while maintaining law and order,” said CTC national spokesperson David Poopalapillai.

“These were troubling times and we know he was under pressure and in a tough situation. We certainly respect his actions and those of his officers in some difficult circumstances. He’s one of the finest leaders in this city and definitely deserving of this honour.”

Blair accepted the award on behalf of the Service.

“This is recognition for the work done by members of our organization,” said Blair.

“We work very closely with a substantial Tamil population with whom we have developed a very respectful relationship.”

Egypt’s Revolution: ‘We Started To Chant, And The Group Started To Get Bigger’

By Yassir Hamouda -January 24, 2013 

Yassir Hamouda, a member of the 6 April Movement, went out with 50 others on 25 January 2011 demanding bread, freedom and social justice. He describes how the protest snowballed into the overthrow of Mubarak, and how he feels the revolution was appropriated by the Muslim Brotherhood and the US

• This video interview is part of a series marking the second anniversary of the Tahrir Square revolution, produced by Samar Media

Sri Lanka Navy vs. the people of Mullikulam

Sri Lanka Navy vs. the people of Mullikulam

24 Jan, 2013

Groundviews

“The Cardinal never even visited our church or spoke to our children. He came directly to the Navy Head Quarters for the meeting and left soon after. On my way to the meeting, it was pouring with rain. As I was exhausted when passing my old home, I asked a Navy officer there if I could take shelter from the rain there as it was where I used to live. He refused and told me that I’d better continue on my way,” said a village elder in desolation.

“Whatever they (the Government) are offering you, please accept, as I will come forward as your guarantor,” said His Eminence Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith to the people of Mullikulam, at the outset of the meeting[1] held between them and the Defence Secretary, Gotabaya Rajapaksa on December 26, 2012, to discuss their plight, having been displaced by the occupying Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) since 2007. The Bishop of Mannar, Most Rev. Dr. Rayappu Joseph, was also present at this meeting.

At the meeting, the Defence Secretary had offered to build a new alternate village in the Malankaadu area, 750m outside of their original lands in Mullikulam, with free access to the school and church that are located within the premises of the newly built Naval Head Quarters.  In response, some of the people had rejected this offer and demanded that they be permitted to return to their original villages, whilst others have asked if they could at least have the lands near the church returned to them. The Defence Secretary had told them, that it wasn’t possible to do so “on account of national security” and as the lands near the church belong to the Forest Department. However, the SLN seems to have no problem occupying so called “Forest Department” land without following any proper procedure. Still others had said that if they were to agree to the 750m border, they would also require a road with free access to their church and school, void of any presence of SLN personnel or security check-points. To which the Defence Secretary had stated, “Your Cardinal is here, your Bishop is here, if you give your consent, we will commence work tomorrow.”

The North Western Naval Commander, Rear Admiral Rohana Perera, showed a map of the area, within which 7 tanks were located. “If most of the tanks are within the Navy occupied area, how will we access them to carry out our cultivation,” questioned the people. According to the map shown, the 750m boundary includes the tanks of Puliyankulam and Adappankulam. However, 6 tanks remain located within the land occupied by the SLN. The Defence Secretary had responded that it was not land belonging to the SLN, and that therefore the people could negotiate with the Forest Department and begin their cultivation. The villagers claim that “the Government is coming with iron fists, as they’re not willing to negotiate on anything.”                         Continue reading »

Sri Lanka protests US ban on military officer

(AFP) / 24 January 2013

COLOMBO — The US has refused training for a Sri Lankan general in a move that undermined military cooperation and prompted Colombo to turn to China and other nations for help, a top defence official said on Thursday.

 Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapakse said US authorities had refused to enrol Major-General Sudantha Ranasinghe and Colombo was concerned that the decision was based on “wrong information”.
He did not give details of the course the officer had been nominated to follow, but said he would take up the issue with a senior US delegation visiting the country at the weekend.
“I want to tell them that they are wrong... every time they (US diplomats and officials) meet me, they say they want to strengthen the cooperation with our military,” Rajapakse said.
“If the US stops military training (completely), then Sri Lankan officers will only go to China, India and Pakistan.”
Rajapakse did not specify why Ranasinghe had been rejected. The US refuses entry to any foreign military personnel suspected of human rights violations.
The US and other nations have been highly critical of Sri Lanka’s military for its final onslaught on Tamil rebel areas in 2009, which left an estimated 40,000 civilians dead.
Ranasinghe had been the commissioner-general of rehabilitation responsible for reintegrating into society some 12,000 Tamil rebels who surrendered in the final stages of the war, Rajapakse said.
He said the officer had not been involved in direct combat operations.
The US stopped selling military hardware to Sri Lanka throughout much of its 37-year ethnic war against the Tamil rebels, pushing Colombo to make purchases from China, Pakistan and several East European nations.
Military officials said 200 junior Sri Lankan officers continued to receive opportunities for short-term training in the US, but the issue was with senior officers who had held command positions during the height of the fighting.
US Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Vikram Singh and two senior state department officials are due in Colombo Saturday for talks.

God only knows THURSDAY, 24 JANUARY 2013 The wife and son of missing journalist Prageeth Eknaligoda together with a host of other supporters held a silent vigil opposite the parliamentary complex yesterday, to mark the 3rd Anniversary of the disappearance of Eknaligoda. Those present recalling statement made by the former Attorney General who said “God only knows where he is”, said the last hope of legal recourse to find Eknaligoda was also lost. Pix by Pradeep Pathirana

In Sri Lanka, justice for Eknelygoda is a waiting game

By Bob Dietz/CPJ Asia Program Coordinator

Three years ago, on January 24, 2010, columnist andcartoonist Prageeth Eknelygoda vanished on his way to work to cover the final campaigning in Sri Lanka's bitterly contested presidential election. He has not been heard from since. The pro-opposition website he worked for,Lanka eNews, has been repeatedly attacked, its offices hit with arson, its staff arrested and harassed, its editor driven into exile in England.

Hearings into Eknelygoda's disappearance have been lumbering on in the Magistrates Court in Homagama, a distant suburb of Colombo. They were launched at the insistence of his wife, Sandhya, after she was unable to get an answer to her request for information about her husband from any member or agency of the government.

About the only official to make any comment on the fate of Eknelygoda was former Attorney General Mohan Peiris, when he answered questions at the U.N. Committee Against Torture in November 2011, in Geneva. In January 2012, the magistrate ruled that Peiris be called in as a witness to explain what he knows about Eknelygoda's disappearance, but the government dodged this obligation.

Peiris had told the U.N. Committee Against Torture that Eknelygoda took refuge in a foreign country and that the campaign to solve his disappearance is a hoax--although he failed, then and ever since, to provide information about where Eknelygoda has supposedly fled. The government's attorney, appearing before the magistrate, argued that because Peiris had been speaking on behalf of the government at the U.N., he cannot be held responsible for his remarks and need not appear in court. The attorney said officials are not required to disclose communications where "the public interest would suffer," according to a person monitoring the court's hearings.

While it's doubtful Sri Lankan public interest would suffer if Peiris were to tell what the government knows, it is even more unlikely that he will be called again to testify, now that he has been appointed Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. He came to office January 15 after his predecessor, Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake, was impeached by Parliament, which is led by President Mahinda Rajapaksa's ruling party.

The chief justice was charged in November 2012 with 14 counts of corruption, all of which she denied. She was found guilty of three of the charges. The government denies it turned against her after some unfavorable judgments, the BBC reported.

Peiris had been waiting in the wings for the job for years, biding his time as a special adviser to the cabinet after leaving the attorney general's post he was holding back in February 2010, when he met with CPJ in his office. At the end of our interview, CPJ Deputy Director Rob Mahoney and I turned off our tape recorder and asked Peiris to intervene in the Eknelygoda case in some way, any way, to ease the pain of Sandhya and the couple's two teenage sons. The case was barely a month old at the time, and he said he would look into it.

Sandhya Eknelygoda says she has never heard from Peiris or any other member of the Rajapaksa administration. But she has not given up.

"This fight to find Prageeth is my belief," she told CPJ by email this week (a friend translated her comments from Sinhala.) "His case has become a leading indicator that there are serious human rights violations that go unresolved in Sri Lanka. Lots of things will change in the life of our two children, but we will continue this journey until we have justice."

In the three years since Prageeth Eknelygoda disappeared, interest in his case has waned. The Rajapaksa family and the government it controls continue to cement their heavy-handed rule. Sandhya Eknelygoda at times appears at international meetings to make her plea for assistance in her husband's case and the cases of the many other disappeared in Sri Lanka. The United Nations has repeatedly avoided coming to her assistance. Within Sri Lanka, opposition media has been all but silenced, and a score or more journalists have fled the country for their safety.

As former Chief Justice Bandaranayake put it to the BBC before she fled her home--she said her life was in danger--"the very tenor of the rule of law, natural justice, and judicial abeyance has not only been ousted, but brutally mutilated."

Sandhya Eknelygoda says she agrees.

Save the Commonwealth brand: Tell Sri Lanka “enough"

Sir Ronald Sanders-Sunday, January 20, 2013

Sir Ronald Sanders is a business executive and former Caribbean diplomat who publishes widely on Small States in the global community.

IT is time for the Commonwealth of Nations to suspend Sri Lanka from its councils.

In doing so, the Commonwealth would restore confidence in its 2.1 billion people that it is not a hypocritical association that claims to stand for values, including democracy, human rights and the rule of law, but which fails to act to discipline governments that violate these values.

The Sri Lankan Government has now seriously and persistently violated the principles to which every Commonwealth country has declared itself to be committed, and, according to the Commonwealth’s rules, this is ground for suspension from its councils as a first step.

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa (third right), swears in new Chief Justice Mohan Peiris (right), a retired attorney general and a legal adviser to the Cabinet, as Lalith Weeratunga (2nd right), secretary to the president, watches in Colombo on Tuesday, January 15, 2013. Rajapaksa swore in Peiris, a trusted aide, to replace the chief justice he fired, a move that could lead to a judicial crisis if lawyers and judges, who say the move was illegal, refuse to co-operate with the new head judge. (Photo: AP)  1/1

Well-thinking people across the Commonwealth, and those who are concerned about the credibility of the 54-nation grouping, expect the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group (CMAG) to be convened swiftly to suspend Sri Lanka from the Council of the Commonwealth and to set an agenda and timetable for the Government to implement measures to restore respect for the rule of law. The CMAG is a rotating group of foreign ministers from nine Commonwealth countries that is charged with seeing that Commonwealth values, as set out in many declarations, are respected.

The urgency for CMAG action on Sri Lanka has been triggered by the decision of Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapaksa to dismiss the country’s chief justice, Shirani Bandaranayake, after a widely condemned impeachment process. Rajapaksa ignored warnings from Amnesty International, the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), the Commonwealth Lawyers Association, the Commonwealth Judges and Magistrates Association and Commonwealth Secretary- General Kamalesh Sharma not to proceed with impeachment that followed the chief justice’s finding that a controversial Bill tabled in the Parliament was unconstitutional. The Bill had sought to grant disproportionate powers to the minister of economic development, one of the president’s brothers.

Slapping the Commonwealth secretary general and other Commonwealth legal bodies in the face, President Rajapaksa proceeded to dismiss the chief justice and to appoint his former attorney-general to the post. Worse yet, he did so after the Supreme Court ruled that the impeachment proceedings conducted by the Rajapaksadominated Parliament were illegal. The Rajapaksa family holds other senior government positions, including head of the defence ministry and the Speaker of Parliament. One of Mr Rajapaksa’s sons also sits as a member of parliament.

This latest violation flagrantly scorns Commonwealth values as set out in the Latimer House Principles which state: “Judiciaries and parliaments should fulfil their respective but critical roles in the promotion of the rule of law in a complementary and constructive manner; interaction, if any, between the executive and the judiciary should not compromise judicial independence; and judges should be subject to suspension or removal only for reasons of incapacity or misbehaviour that clearly renders them unfit to discharge their duties.”

Sri Lanka is an even bigger problem for the Commonwealth because it is scheduled to host the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in November. No time can now be wasted in deciding to shift the venue to another Commonwealth country.

If Commonwealth Heads of Government turn up in Sri Lanka, they would be sending an unacceptable signal to the world community that governments that violate human rights and the rule of law can do so without fear of censure. If Heads of Government go to Sri Lanka, the Commonwealth can discard its brand as a values-based association and start looking for something else to justify its existence. But, whoever remains in it, it would cease to be respected by the people of its own countries and the international community.

That would be a sad loss for the 32 small states that are a significant number of the 54- nation Commonwealth. They need a vibrant, respected Commonwealth as an advocate and interlocutor on their behalf in the international community. A straw organisation existing on the margins of global regard can do absolutely nothing for them.

In this connection, the Government of Canada should be complimented for trying for over a year to restrain the Government of Sri Lanka from its excesses and to hold it to account for human rights abuses arising from a war with the Tamil Tigers that ended in 2009. The Sri Lankan Government has refused to allow an independent inquiry into the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians during the conflict between government forces and the Tamil Tigers, as well as a worsening human rights situation.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has now indicated that his Government wants Sri Lanka to be discussed at the next meeting of CMAG. Both opposition parties in Canada have gone further, calling on Harper to declare that he would boycott the CHOGM if it is held in Sri Lanka.

A debate in both Houses of Parliament in Britain and a subsequent statement by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office also indicate “deep concern” and called on the Sri Lankan Government to “respect democratic principles”.

However, while Canada and Britain have spoken up, many developing Commonwealth countries have so far remained silent. Their voices also need to be heard, particularly as many of them place great store in democracy and the rule of law, both as a system of governance and as an imperative for attracting investment. Judicial independence is fundamental to the rule of law and essential for any democratic and accountable government.

Commonwealth Secretary-General Kamalesh Sharma has announced that he will be visiting Sri Lanka in February. It is his job to try to resolve the impasse with an obdurate Sri Lankan Government that has so far ignored his advice and the warnings of others. It is also his job to tell the Sri Lankan president that he has violated Commonwealth rules and that, unless the action on the chief justice is reversed and a credible, enforceable plan is presented, Sri Lanka will be placed immediately on the agenda for CMAG with a view to suspending it from the Councils of the Commonwealth.

In any event, the Sri Lankan Government has now done enough to warrant moving the venue for November’s CHOGM to another country. The Government cannot spurn the advice of the secretarygeneral, the Commonwealth legal organisation and other international groupings and yet demand to be privileged to host CHOGM. After all, the location for hosting a Heads of Government meeting must be in the interest of the Commonwealth as a whole.

The foreign ministers of two Caribbean countries — Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago — are members of CMAG. In this connection, they have an important role to play in upholding the values that their own countries honour and respect — those are the values that differentiate the Commonwealth in the world and make it special.

Sir Ronald Sanders was a member of the Commonwealth Eminent Persons Group 2010-2011 Responses and previous commentaries: www.sirronaldsanders.com

Three Years On, No Clues on Prageeth Ekneligoda’s Disappearance

                                                                                

January 23, 2013

On the three-year anniversary of the disappearance of journalist Prageeth Ekneligoda, the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) joins partners and affiliates in reminding the Government of Sri Lanka that it continues to be seriously remiss in meeting its commitments on national reconciliation and fixing accountability for human rights abuses during the island nation’s quarter-century long civil war and its immediate aftermath.

Ekneligoda, a freelance cartoonist and columnist whose work has appeared in various print and online media outlets, went missing while returning from the office of the news website Lanka-e-News late on the evening of 24 January 2010. In his last known telephone conversation with a friend, he said that he was going to visit somebody who he did not identify.

Sri Lanka’s first presidential election since the civil war against Tamil separatism was declared over in May 2009, was scheduled to take place on 26 January 2010, pitting incumbent President Mahinda Rajapaksa against Sarath Fonseka, the retired general who had led the Sri Lankan army to victory in the war.

Ekneligoda who has frequently taken time off from his journalism to engage in political activism, was known to have participated in Fonseka’s campaign and contributed publicity material for it 

Ekneligoda’s wife Sandya lodged a complaint soon after he went missing with the police station nearest their home. This was also registered with the police station with jurisdiction over the neighbourhood of the Lanka-e-News office. Failing to obtain any manner of assurance from these quarters, Sandya Ekneligoda approached the more specialised investigative agency under the Sri Lankan police, the Colombo Crimes Division (CCD).

In March 2010, Sandya Ekneligoda filed a habeas corpus petition in the High Court in Colombo. The bench began hearing the petition in May and since then the investigative agencies have repeatedly asked for adjournments to ascertain details of the case.

On the first anniversary of the disappearance, Sandya Ekneligoda handed over a letter at the office of the United Nations in the Sri Lankan capital city. The matter has also been brought to the attention of the U.N. Human Rights Council, through the UN Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances.

The IFJ regrets to note that despite interventions at all these levels, there has been not been the slightest clue about the circumstances of Ekneligoda’s disappearance.

“We are also disturbed at a pattern of careless and insensitive interventions in the matter by official spokespersons”, said the IFJ Asia-Pacific.

In an interview with Sri Lanka’s largest English-language newspaper, the Daily Mirror in 2010, Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, brother of the President, professed himself ignorant about who Ekneligoda is and suggested that he may have “disappeared himself”.

At a review meeting on the U.N. Convention on Torture in November 2011, former Attorney-General Mohan Pieris, officially representing Sri Lanka as a state-party, claimed to have information that Ekneligoda had gone into exile and was living in a foreign country.

On being summoned by the magistrate hearing the matter to explain himself in May 2012, Pieris who has recently been appointed Chief Justice of Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court, admitted that he may have spoken in ignorance.

In 2012, Sri Lanka’s Free Media Movement (FMM) and other associations of journalists decided to observe January as a “black month” to commemorate Prageeth’s disappearance, Lasantha Wickrematunga’s murder and numerous other atrocities against journalism that by coincidence or otherwise, occurred in that month over various years. The first public gatherings held under the campaign were dispersed by stick-wielding toughs mobilised by the ruling party. The FMM and partner organisations also attracted the hostile attention of government spokespersons and were attacked in most extreme terms over the state-owned media.

“We see the same pattern of behaviour recurring today, with campaigners for a free judiciary who have been mobilising after the controversial impeachment of Sri Lanka’s Chief Justice earlier this month, suffering similar intimidation and vilification”, said the IFJ Asia-Pacific.

“These events and the government’s continuing default on redressing the severe abuses against media freedom that occurred during years of internal strife, suggest that the Rajapaksa regime has a long way to go in merely establishing its intent to pursue a course of national reconciliation”. 

“We extend our solidarity to the FMM and other partners, including the Sri Lanka Journalists’ Association, the Federation of Media Employees’ Trade Unions, the Sri Lanka Tamil Media Alliance and the Sri Lanka Muslim Media Forum, as they resume their ‘Black January’ campaign on 28 January under the slogan ‘Resist Suppression of the Media – Uphold Rule of Law’”.

For further information contact IFJ Asia-Pacific on +612 9333 0950

UK still undecided on CHOGM

Government Response to the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee Report HC114 of Session 2012-13: The Role and Future of the Commonwealth

Government response to the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee report of 15 November 2012 on the role and future of the Commonwealth.

Ref: ISBN 9780101852128, CM 8521PDF, 226KB, 28 pages

In an official response, the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs said,

We note the Committee’s recommendation on the Commonwealth Heads of 
Government Meeting in Colombo, Sri Lanka in 2013.  We recognise, and share, 
the concerns of the Committee about the human rights situation in Sri Lanka, 
particularly in light of the recent dismissal of the Chief Justice following an 
impeachment process the Sri Lankan Supreme Court ruled illegal. 

 We look to Sri Lanka, as with any other CHOGM host, to demonstrate its commitment to 
upholding Commonwealth values of good governance and respect for human rights 
as we have stated publicly.  It will also be important that delegations, civil society 
and media are able to travel and report freely.  

The concerns of the UK and the wider international community on human rights are regularly relayed to the Government of Sri Lanka. These include issues of media freedom, the need to 
address longstanding issues of accountability and reconciliation after the war, and 
the importance of judicial independence.  These messages will be reiterated by 
Alistair Burt, FCO Parliamentary Under Secretary of State, when he next visits Sri 
Lanka, and in the context of our expectations for CHOGM.  

It is, however, too early to make decisions about UK attendance at CHOGM.  Decisions on attendance are for each Commonwealth member government to take for itself.
See the full response to the report here.

Danger of Sri Lankan regime quickly winding up Ekneligoda’s case looms: RSF/JDS

24 JANUARY 2013

BY RAMANAN VEERASINGHAM

Vehemently condemning the Sri Lankan authorities “for making no progress” with the probe into the disappearance of Sri Lankan cartoonist Prageeth Ekneligoda for the past three years, the Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and the Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka (JDS) Thursday expressed their fears on the possibilities of the Sri Lankan regime closing up his file quickly, with President Mahinda Rajapaksa controversially appointing his loyalist as the island’s new chief justice.

“By appointing Mohan Peiris, who told the United Nations outrageous lies, as Supreme Court chief justice, Sri Lanka’s president is openly signalling his desire to quickly close the investigations into Ekneligoda’s death and fellow journalist Lasantha Wickrematunga’s murder,” Benjamin Ismaïl, Head of Asia-Pacific Desk of the RSF said in a hard-hitting joint statement, issued on Thursday to mark the third anniversary of the disappeared journalist.

Reiterating their call for justice, the RSF/JDS said that the government’s lack of action and Supreme Court chief justice Shirani Bandaranayake’s recent replacement “by a loyalist of President Mahinda Rajapakse is further proof that the Rajapaksa family is consolidating its grip on the judiciary and, in so doing, is suppressing the truth about many cases including those involving media freedom”.

Ekneligoda went missing on his way home from the office of the Lanka-e-News website in Colombo on 24 January, 2010. The third anniversary of Ekneligoda’s disappearance comes barely a couple of weeks after the fourth anniversary of the death of Sunday Leader Editor Lasantha Wickrematunga, who was gunned down in Colombo on 8 January 2009. There too the perpetrators remain unpunished and well-protected. 

Here is the statement of the RSF/JDS in full:

'On the the third anniversary of the disappearance of Prageeth Ekneligoda, a freelance cartoonist and political analyst who worked for the Lanka-e-News website, Reporters Without Borders (RWB) and Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka (JDS) reiterate their call for justice and condemn the failure of the authorities to make any progress with the investigation.

“Ekneligoda has been missing for three years and the investigation by the Sri Lankan police and judicial authorities has ground to a complete halt,” RWB and JDS said.

“The government’s lack of action and supreme court chief justice Shirani Bandaranayake’s recent replacement by a relative of President Mahinda Rajapakse is further proof that the Rajapaksa family is consolidating its grip on the judiciary and, in so doing, is suppressing the truth about many cases including those involving media freedom.

“By appointing Mohan Peiris, who told the United Nations outrageous lies, as supreme court chief justice, Sri Lanka’s president is openly signalling his desire to quickly close the investigations into Ekneligoda’s death and fellow journalist Lasantha Wickrematunga’s murder.”

Ekneligoda disappeared as he was leaving the offices of the Lanka-e-News website in Colombo on 24 January. Government officials made a series of contradictory statements about his disappearance while the police made few efforts to find him alive.

A former attorney-general, Mohan Peiris told the United Nations Committee Against Torture in Geneva on 9 November 2011 that Ekneligoda was alive and in hiding somewhere abroad but he retracted when questioned by a Colombo court last year.

Ekneligoda was a well-known cartoonist whose work advocated respect for democracy and minority rights. His disappearance came at a time of considerable political tension just three days before President Rajapakse’s reelection on 27 January 2010.

His wife, Sandya Ekneligoda, reported his disappearance to several police stations and the National Commission on Human Rights. She went on to seek international support, turning to UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon and the UN representative in Colombo. In March 2012, she went to Geneva to testify to the UN Human Rights Council.

Journalists, especially those who try to shed light on the human rights violations that took place during the final months of the Tamil rebellion, have been subject to an unprecedented campaign of threats and intimidation since 2009.

The campaign stepped up in March 2012 in the run-up to a UN Human Rights Council session that examined the situation in Sri Lanka. The council adopted a resolution calling on Sri Lanka to prosecute those suspected of human rights violations during the war.

The anniversary of Ekneligoda’s disappearance comes just two weeks after the fourth anniversary of the death of Lasantha Wickrematunga, the editor of the opposition Sunday Leader newspaper, who was gunned down in Colombo on 8 January 2009. His murder remains unpunished.

A country where journalists are permanently exposed to violence and impunity although its civil war officially ended in 2009, Sri Lanka is ranked 163rd out of 179 countries in the 2011-2012 press freedom index and is classified as country “under surveillance” in the Reporters Without Borders Internet survey.'

Photo courtesy: vikapla.org

‘මට යුක්තිය ඉල්ලන්න වෙලා තියෙන්නෙ ලෙඩෙකුගෙන්‘

අම්මා(සංධ්‍යා එක්ණැලිගොඩ) සිය පුතුට විරෝධතා මුඛවාඩම පළදවන අයුරැ ‘‘ආණ්ඩුවේ නියෝජිතයා ජිනීවා වලට ගිහිල්ලා කියනවා ප්‍රගීත් ජීවතුන් අතර ඉන්නවා කියලා. ඊට පස්සේ ලංකාවෙ අධිකරණයේදී සාක්ෂි කූඩුවට නැගලා කියනවා ප්‍රගීත් එක්ණැලිගොඩ ඉන්න තැන දන්නෙ දෙයියො විතරයි කියලා. සහ එයාට... 

January 24, 2013 at 7:08 pm by Karapoththa  
Filed under Colombo, Democracy, Features,Governance, Human Rights, Media, Politics and Governance

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