MP’s claim on missing journalist should be challenged: HRW

Sri Lankan authorities should challenge a ruling party parliamentarian’s claim that a journalist disappeared in 2010 had been living in France and provide information on his fate, the Human Rights Watch said Sunday.

Ruling party Puttalam District MP Arundika Fernando said in parliament on 5 June, 2013, that cartoonist Prageeth Eknaligoda missing since 24 January, 2010 is currently residing in France under disguise.

MP Fernando said that he was introduced to Eknaligoda by another Sri Lanka journalist, Manjula Wediwardhana who is in exile under political asylum, during a visit to France.

Wediwardhana, however, has rejected the MP’s claim and said that he had never met Eknaligoda in France.

The New York-based human rights organisation, Human Rights Watch (HRW) in a statement issued Sunday said solving the disappearance of Eknaligoda and that of thousands of other Sri Lankans over past decades should be a top priority of the Sri Lankan government and its investigative agencies.

“After years of no progress in Eknaligoda’s case, any clues about his fate should prompt an intensive investigation, not shrugs by senior government officials,” Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch said.

The whereabouts of Eknaligoda, a father of two, are still unknown despite a claim by the former Attorney General and current Chief Justice Mohan Peiris that the journalist has sought asylum in a foreign country.

The organisation which is highly critical of the Sri Lankan government said the government needs to take serious measures to end enforced disappearances, provide information to families on the fate or whereabouts of their relatives, and prosecute all those responsible.

According to HRW, the United Nation’s Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances has recorded 5,671 reported cases of disappearances in Sri Lanka during its 26-year-long civil war, a figure that does not include those unaccounted for during the end stages of the war in 2008 to 2009 or people “disappeared” since then.

“The Rajapaksa government’s disregard for the fate of Eknaligoda reflects its broader disregard for the fate of a free press in Sri Lanka,” the Asia director said.