IUSF stages protest against police assault on journalists in Colombo

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 19 October 2010, 12:23 GMT]
Inter University Students Federation (IUSF) and media rights groups staged a protest demonstration at Lipton Circus in Colombo Tuesday against police assault on media persons covering the protest march of IUSF Thursday in Colombo. The students were protesting outside the Sri Lankan Ministry of Education to demand the release of a group of student activists from Sri Lanka’s Peradeniya University, who were imprisoned after booing the Minister of Higher Education S.B. Dissanayake on a recent campus visit. Twenty-one students arrested at the protest will face court on October 29, according to media reports.

Over three hundred journalists participated in Tuesday protest demonstration.

Meanwhile, The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has called for immediate disciplinary action to be taken after a group of police officers allegedly assaulted a group of journalists covering the student protest.

“The IFJ demands that Sri Lanka’s authorities investigate this gross misuse of violence against journalists who had clearly identified themselves as reporters and not protestors,” IFJ General Secretary Aidan White said, according to media reports.