On the night of 15th January, journalist Faraz Shauketaly, who works for the Sunday Leader, was shot by unidentified gunmen at his residence in Mount Lavinia, on the outskirts of Colombo. This is the latest in a series of violent attacks on journalists and media employees since President Mahinda Rajapakse came to office in 2005.
Shauketaly is a dual British-Sri Lankan citizen. The gunmen stormed into his house while he was in a phone conversation with a colleague about an article. The assailants were clearly trying to kill him, but they failed. In recent days, he had told several of his fellow journalists that he had received death threats over the phone.
Shauketaly wrote investigative articles on corruption in the public and private sector. He had recently written several articles on corruption in coal power projects in Sri Lanka.
President Rajapaksa announced on Saturday that he had ordered police chief N.K. Illangakoon to conduct an “immediate investigation” into the shooting. He made the same order after virtually every attack, but none of those responsible has ever been apprehended.
Comments by police spokesman Prishantha Jayakody make clear that this inquiry will be no different. “Investigators have still not been able to make any headway. We are probing all aspects of the case,” he said.
Sri Lanka’s Editors’ Guild, the Free Media Movement and South Asia Free Media Association, have condemned the attack on Shauketaly.
There has been a long history of acts of violence including killings and “disappearances” carried out by pro-government thugs and militias, acting in collusion with the security forces. Among the targets have been media workers and journalists who have made even mild criticisms of Rajapaksa, government leaders or top officials.
On February 7, unidentified thugs grabbed bundles of the Tamil language newspaper, Thinakkural, which is published in Jaffna, and burned them. Several weeks ago, Uthayan, another Tamil language newspaper, was similarly attacked. Both papers have been critical of the Colombo government.
The Sunday Leader is well known for its criticism of the Rajapaksa regime; it has been repeatedly attacked. In November 2007, its printing press was gutted. In January 2009, its then editor Lasantha Wickrematunge was murdered in broad daylight as he was driving to work. Despite the heavy security presence in Colombo, his killers escaped and were never found by police.
In a Sunday Leader editorial written in advance and published posthumously, Wickrematunge blamed Rajapaksa for his death. “In the wake of my death I know you [Rajapaksa] will make all the usual sanctimonious noises and call upon the police to hold a swift and thorough inquiry,” he wrote. “But like all the inquiries you have ordered in the past, nothing will come of this one too.”
In 2008, Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, the president’s brother, filed a defamation case against the Sunday Leader for publishing an article exposing corruption in a defence deal. The court last year ruled in favour of Gotabhaya, and ordered the papers’ publishers pay him $US2 million. It also issued a permanent order preventing the paper from publishing any further article that could be defamatory of Rajapaksa.
Facing these heavy penalties, the Leader publishing company was taken over last year by a person close to the government. Editor Federica Janz was sacked after the taker when she refused to stop criticising the government. Janz left the country in September fearing for her life, as she had been previously threatened by Defence Secretary Rajapaksa and pro-government thugs.
Since 1999, 25 media workers, including journalists, have been killed in Sri Lanka, many since Rajapakse came to power. Several journalists, including lanka3news.com editor Pradeep Ekneligoda, have “disappeared”. Over the same period, 20 journalists have fled the country fearing for their lives.
Access to five web sites critical of the government has been blocked by the authorities. Last year, citing national security, the government blocked a freedom of information bill that would have given limited public access to government documents. The government fears such a measure could help expose its human rights violations and responsibility for war crimes.
New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists has characterised Sri Lanka as “highly restrictive and dangerous nation for the press.” Last month, Reporters Without Borders placed Sri Lanka at 162 out of 179 in its Press Freedom Index.
Confronting a deepening economic and social crisis, the government is seeking to intimidate and suppress any opposition or criticism of its rule. Rajapaksa is strengthening the police state apparatus that was built up in decades of civil war for use against the Tamil Tigers.
–adopted from a WSWS article
