Friday Nov 22, 2024
Friday Nov 22, 2024
Thursday, 9 January 2020 01:14 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
On the 11th death anniversary of journalist Lasantha Wickrematunge yesterday, the International Press Institute (IPI), a global network of editors, media executives and leading journalists for press freedom, renewed its call on the Government of Sri Lanka to investigate the former Sunday Leader editor’s murder, and bring those responsible to justice.
“It has been 11 years since Lasantha Wickrematunge was assassinated, yet virtually no progress has been made in securing justice,” IPI Director of Advocacy Ravi R. Prasad said.
“The Sri Lankan Government has failed to investigate the murder of one of the leading journalists of his time, who exposed corruption in the highest echelons of the Government. The Government should expedite the investigation and hold the killers and those who masterminded the murder to account.”
Lasantha Wickrematunge, the founding editor of English weekly Sunday Leader, was assassinated on 8 January 2009 by four assailants riding on motorcycles who stopped him on his way to his office on Attidiya-Mt. Lavinia road, in a suburb of Sri Lankan capital Colombo.
The IPI said Wickrematunge was one of Sri Lanka’s most persistent and authoritative critics of both the government and the militant Tamil Tigers (LTTE). Less than a week before he was killed, Wickrematunge had criticised then-President Mahinda Rajapaksa for allegedly using the war against the LTTE as a tool for achieving electoral success.
Following the murder, the Criminal Investigation Department arrested a suspect, who mysteriously died in police custody. In 2016 the suspect’s body was exhumed for medical examination on the request of the investigators. A news report said that though he was claimed to have been shot dead, his body had stab wounds. Under Wickrematunge’s editorship, the Sunday Leader was highly critical of then-President Mahinda Rajapaksa and his Government, and accused the army of human rights abuses against the ethnic minority Tamils during the country’s civil war.
As a result, the paper and its journalists were subject to threats, censorship orders, criminal defamation lawsuits, armed raids, and arson attacks. Wickrematunge himself was twice badly beaten. He had received anonymous death threats and his home was sprayed with machine gun fire. Wickrematunge had predicted his own death in an editorial published after his murder, in which he wrote: “When finally I am killed, it will be the Government that kills me.” Wickrematunge also predicted that an investigation into his murder would languish. He wrote: “In the wake of my death I know you [Sri Lankan President 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.”
Wickrematunge was posthumously declared an IPI World Press Freedom Hero in the year 2010. IPI World Press Freedom Heroes are individuals who have made a significant contribution to the defence and promotion of press freedom, especially if that involved acts of resistance or bravery under harsh conditions.
