Mass media must defend against Govt. repression: SAFMA Sri Lanka

The Sri Lanka Chapter of the South Asian Free Media Association in a statement yesterday condemned the recent illegal arrest and violent assault by Police of Journalist Tharindu Uduwaragedara and calls on the news media community to urgently build self-protection against rising Governmental and other political repression. 

The Borella Police have openly violated legal procedure and committed assault against Uduwaragedara on 28 July while this internationally known and award-winning journalist was reporting on an on-going protest demonstration.

SAFMA Sri Lanka notes that the Police personnel involved, including senior officers, carried out the arrest violating all procedure and also publicly assaulted this well-known journalist on the street even as other news media cameras recorded the shocking incident. SAFMA Sri Lanka draws the public’s attention to this wanton, violent, behaviour by the so-called ‘guardians of the Law’ and warns that this openly illegal behaviour demonstrates an alarming new practice of brutal repression of citizenry by the authorities.

This violent and illegal action in public by public officers evidences official authorisation at least by their immediate superiors, if not by the Governmental authorities. Such illegal, public brutality by State personnel has often occurred in the past and was seen as deliberate, uncivilised, anti-democratic practice by successive governments and by State security agencies. At least sixty journalists are among the thousands of Sri Lankans who have been victims of such uncivilised State repression over decades rendering this country as a serious case of human rights violations in the eyes of the global community. SAFMASL points out to Sri Lanka’s citizenry and the world community that the clear revival of such practice indicates that Sri Lanka is, once more, returning to that Dark Age.

The behaviour of the Police indicates that current legal responses to investigate and punish the perpetrators could likely be as inconclusive and un-productive as the many similar legal defensive and corrective efforts in the past. To date, no one, either State personnel or private individuals have convicted of even the murder or disappearance of media professionals while in the course of journalistic duties.

In this light, it is incumbent on the mass media industry and its professionals to build capacity to defend against and survive this newly reviving State repression. It is the duty of the nation to support the mass media community in this cause and to mobilise international solidarity for this purpose. Such capacity building necessarily involves special training in physical survival while on duty, protective equipment, support readiness by other relevant professionals such as medical and legal resource persons and, civil society support services. The nation’s news media audiences are called on to encourage and support news workers of all types as they fulfil their duty to society.

SAFMASL especially calls on the judiciary and legal community, as well as the United Nations, to respond to this calamitous situation the nation now faces.