British-Sri
Lankan journalist shot in his bedroom
Doctors have successfully removed a bullet from
the neck of an investigative journalist in Sri Lanka who was shot by
unidentified gunmen who stormed into his home and fired at close range. The
journalist works for the same publication whose former editor-in-chief was
murdered four years ago in an attack his wife blamed on the
government.
Faraz Shauketaly, who holds
both British and Sri Lankan citizenship, was shot by three men who broke into
his house in a Colombo suburb late on Friday evening. He was taken to Colombo
National Hospital where he underwent surgery to remove the bullet this
afternoon. A hospital employee said the 54-year-old remained in intensive care
but was in a stable condition.
Faraz
Shauketaly shot by three men at his Colombo home
SATURDAY
16 FEBRUARY 2013
Doctors have successfully removed a bullet from
the neck of an investigative journalist in Sri Lanka who was shot by
unidentified gunmen who stormed into his home and fired at close range. The
journalist works for the same publication whose former editor-in-chief was
murdered four years ago in an attack his wife blamed on the
government.Faraz Shauketaly, who holds
both British and Sri Lankan citizenship, was shot by three men who broke into
his house in a Colombo suburb late on Friday evening. He was taken to Colombo
National Hospital where he underwent surgery to remove the bullet this
afternoon. A hospital employee said the 54-year-old remained in intensive care
but was in a stable condition.
Mr Shauketaly was employed by the Sunday Leader newspaper, one of the few
publications in Sri Lanka that prints articles critical of the government of
President Mahinda Rajapaksa. In January 2009, its then editor-in-chief Lasantha
Wickrematunga was murdered. Before his death he had penned an essay saying that
if he was killed the government would have been responsible. His killers have
still not been traced.
According to the Sunday Leader’s current editor, Shakuntala
Perera, Mr Shauketaly, had been in his bedroom in his home in the Mt Lavinia
neighbourhood, speaking with a sub-editor who was working with him on a story,
when the attackers broke in.
“He was talking with the sub-editor. She
realised the phone had been switched off and she wanted to know what had
happened,” Ms Perera toldThe
Independent.
“We rang on another phone but there was no
answer. After ten minutes someone picked up the phone and told us he had been
shot.”
Ms Perera said the paper had received no
threats ahead of the attack. But she said two weeks ago, a group of four
unidentified men had gone to Mr Shauketaly’s home and spoke to the journalists’s
domestic help to confirm that it was his residence.
Mr Shauketaly is known for his investigative
articles on a variety of topics. Ms Perera said that in recent weeks he had been
working on a series of articles that focussed on corruption both within “the
private and government sectors”.
One of the issues he had been looking into were
developments in the Golden Key Credit Card Company affair, a twisting tale
relating to a private company that collapsed with losses of $230m, leaving
thousands of angry depositors. Those people are still trying to get their money
back.
Sri Lanka is one of the most perilous places
for journalists. Since 2006, at least 14 journalists or media workers have been
killed, according to figures compiled by Amnesty International. Many more have
fled overseas. Many of those still working in Sri Lanka privately admit they are
obliged to operate with a level of self-censorship.
A spokesman for President Rajapaksa, Mohan
Samaranayake, told the AFPthat the
president had ordered the police to carry out a thorough investigation into the
attack.
It is understood that Mr Shauketaly had
recently returned to Sri Lanka from Britain, where his wife and children live.
An official at the British High Commission in Colombo said: “We are aware of,
and concerned about, the shooting of Mr Shauketaly, a journalist and British
national. He will be visited by a member of the consular staff today and given
further assistance as required. At this time, our thoughts are with Mr
Shauketaly and his family.”
The Sunday
Leader has a history of being critical of the government. Yet some
observers claim that since last summer, when it was partly sold to a businessman
considered close to the party of Mr Rajapaksa, it has been less outspoken. Ms
Perera has denied that it has lost its independence, telling the BBC last year: “It’s not just any other paper,
it’s really something people believe in and that needs to carry on.”
The paper’s former editor-in-chief, Lasantha
Wickrematunga, was shot dead by two men on motorbikes in January 2009. In the
preceding weeks, the paper had been increasingly critical of the government’s
military operation against Tamil rebels, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam
(LTTE), who had launched a bloody, decades-long insurgency against the
state.
The government operation ultimately crushed the
LTTE in the spring of 2009 but a team of UN investigators concluded that up to
40,000 Tamil civilians may have been killed as well. This week, the Sri Lankan
military’s own panel of inquiry announced it had concluded the country’s armed
forces did not shell civilians.
Mr Wickrematunga had often clashed with the
government. In a now-celebrated essay he had written in the weeks before his
death and which was subsequently published posthumously by the Sunday Leader, he pointed the finger of blame
at the government. His wife also accused the government for the killing. The
government has always denied the accusation.
In his essay, Mr Wickrematunga wrote: “No other
profession calls on its practitioners to lay down their lives for their art save
the armed forces and, in Sri Lanka, journalism.”
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